Being a Scrum Master can be tough
“You are evil! I’ve worked on this for half a year and now you seek to destroy it!”
Yes, Sarah’s manager is angry. She feels she is at risk of losing her job. Luckily she not alone. He’s targeting her and her fellow Scrum Master.
Still she feels terrible. Is this the price of being open, committed and courageous?
“When the values of commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect are embodied and lived by the Scrum Team, the Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation come to life and build trust for everyone.” — Scrum Guide 2017 (emphasis is mine)
Great phrase. And true perhaps. But what if Sarah and her colleague embody the Scrum values and live by it, but her manager isn’t?
![Man looking angry at a woman Man looking angry at a woman](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc0f02f7-ce2b-4e7f-98f2-e7a73173f1a4_800x382.png)
What happened?
Sarah’s organisation is in the middle of an ‘Agile transformation’ with all the bells and whistles. They have external Agile Coaches helping them and product, managers and teams have been trained. Autonomy, servant leadership and self-organisation are the new buzz-words.
But what happens when theory meets reality?
The reality was that her manager — Fred — stood at the helm of a team that created a complicated Jira workflow. This was to be used to determine the effectiveness of all the Scrum Teams of the company. He said that all teams had to use it. And Sarah’s team resented it. So did she. This had nothing to do with self-organisation and servant-leadership as they saw it.
As the Scrum Master, Sarah saw it as her responsibility to step up and discuss this. As she knew that she had a mountain to climb, she asked a fellow Scrum Master to help her. His team also had major issues with this Jira workflow. Other teams and Scrum Masters were reluctant to voice their opinion. So the two of them alone arranged a meeting with her manager. This is where he went overboard. He expressed that he saw Sarah and her fellow Scrum Master as immediate threat.
What now?
Sarah and her colleague now didn’t have one impediment, they had two. And the new one — her manager sees them as blockers of progress and wants them removed as Scrum Masters — was even more serious than the Jira workflow issue.
Sarah joked that a Scrum Master that has never been fired isn’t a real Scrum Master. She’d never been fired. Neither was her colleague. Now they felt this was a real possibility.
But even more important than their jobs being at risk was that the whole journey towards agility was in danger of being derailed. All the town-halls with great words and all the training and coaching they had received were awesome. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
An organisation can’t change overnight. People also can’t change overnight. This takes time. And trust can take years to build, but can be gone in a few minutes.
Being aware of all of this they decided to discuss the topic with their CEO, the driver of the journey to agility.
A helping hand
The CEO, who’s name is Maria, listened to them and then discussed the topic with Sarah’s manager, Fred. After weighing everything she decided that Fred deserved to have the opportunity to demonstrate his product to the teams. Maria also made clear that the teams had the choice to adopt the workflow or not. Some teams decided to use it. The majority decided against it.
Then the strangest thing happened. Sarah’s manager was relieved that she hadn’t attempted to ban his product, which completely changed his attitude towards her and her fellow Scrum Master. But banning was never their intention. They merely wanted to avoid that a top-down solution was forced upon the teams without them having a final say in this.
Their working relationship has considerably improved since then. It was a learning experience for all.
Others followed
The situation described in this article was a pivotal moment in their journey towards agility. The company showed that they were serious. It wasn’t just lip service.
Sarah and her colleague had the courage to step up, to discuss behaviour that was supposed to be unacceptable in an environment that adopted Scrum. They felt that their job was put on the line. With the success they achieved they were an example for their colleagues.
Now others also dare to step up if they feel that their servant leader does things that are perceived as unwanted top-down management behaviour. And their leaders have learned a lot too. They have taken a major step towards a culture of autonomy, servant-leadership and self-organisation.