Collaborating On Defining Success For Scrum Masters, The 360 View | Ramya Shastri

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: "Collaborating On Defining Success For Scrum Masters, The 360 View" Featuring Ramya Shastri

Release Date: December 5, 2024

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Introduction

In the episode titled "Collaborating On Defining Success For Scrum Masters, The 360 View," host Vasco Duarte engages in an insightful conversation with Ramya Shastri, an experienced Scrum Master and Agile Coach. This discussion delves deep into understanding success from a Scrum Master’s perspective, effective retrospective practices, and fostering collaborative relationships with stakeholders.

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Favorite Retrospective Formats

Ramya Shastri’s Approach to Retrospectives

At the outset, Vasco inquires about Ramya's preferred retrospective format. Surprisingly, Ramya emphasizes flexibility over rigid structures:

“I typically don't have any one particular format or favorite format... I ensure that throughout the sprint, I provide an environment to the team members that people are open to share ideas.”
[00:50]

She believes that the essence of retrospectives lies in creating an open and trusting environment rather than adhering to specific formats. Ramya prioritizes personal connections by encouraging team members to share non-work-related experiences first, thereby warming up the conversation:

“Everyone should come on video... I try to open up the conversation by not talking about the work first in retrospective... how was your week and what did you do?”
[03:00]

This approach helps in building rapport and making the team comfortable before delving into sprint-related discussions. Ramya also involves the team in choosing retrospective activities, fostering ownership and creativity:

“I asked team members if they want to do it in a particular format... Think this as an opportunity wherein we are celebrating the wins of the sprint.”
[04:00]

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Defining Success for Scrum Masters

Personalized Metrics for Success

Vasco shifts the conversation to the crux of the episode: defining success for Scrum Masters. Ramya articulates that success is not a one-size-fits-all concept and varies based on the team and project context:

“The success of the role as a Scrum Master depends upon the project or the teams that I work with... success for one team may not be the success for others.”
[05:00]

She outlines a structured approach to defining success:

1. Initial Discussions with Hiring Managers: Before embarking on a new project, Ramya engages with hiring managers to understand their expectations and challenges.

2. Identifying and Prioritizing Challenges: She collaborates with team members and stakeholders to list and prioritize these challenges.

3. Empowering the Team: Instead of directly solving problems, Ramya focuses on enabling the team to address their challenges, thereby fostering self-sufficiency and collective success.

“I'm enabling team members to address those challenges. And when they do that, obviously they will achieve their success as a team together.”
[06:00]

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Interacting with Managers and Stakeholders

Building Collaborative Relationships

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around effectively communicating with managers and other stakeholders to redefine success metrics. Ramya highlights common pitfalls, such as managers viewing Scrum Masters as adversaries and the superficial understanding of Scrum’s purpose:

“Most of the Scrum Masters treat the project managers and delivery managers as enemies... but we need to understand even they are like stakeholders for us.”
[08:05]

She advocates for treating managers as team members and addressing their individual challenges:

“I try to ask them what is bothering you in your role... help them in that particular report.”
[09:00]

By doing so, Ramya transforms the relationship from adversarial to collaborative, ensuring that managers feel supported rather than opposed. This approach not only aligns managerial expectations with Scrum principles but also enhances overall team performance.

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Key Insights and Best Practices

1. Flexibility Over Rigid Structures: Ramya’s emphasis on adaptable retrospective formats underscores the importance of tailoring Scrum practices to fit team dynamics rather than enforcing strict adherence to predefined methods.

2. Comprehensive Stakeholder Engagement: Success is multi-faceted and requires engaging with all stakeholders, including managers and customers, to understand and address their unique challenges and expectations.

3. Empowerment and Facilitation: A Scrum Master’s role is to empower the team to solve their problems, fostering an environment of trust and continuous improvement rather than micromanaging solutions.

4. Clear Communication: Defining success involves deep, meaningful conversations that move beyond generic statements. Translating high-level goals into concrete, actionable metrics ensures alignment and clarity.

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Conclusion

In this episode, Ramya Shastri provides a nuanced perspective on defining success as a Scrum Master. By prioritizing flexibility in retrospectives, fostering collaborative relationships with stakeholders, and empowering teams to address their challenges, she exemplifies effective Scrum Mastery. Her insights offer valuable guidance for Scrum Masters aiming to enhance their role and drive meaningful success within their teams.

Notable Quotes:

• “Our role as a Scrum Master is not only towards the team but towards each stakeholder, including the customer.”
  — Ramya Shastri [07:25]

• “If you talk to them as someone who is going to help them, they’ll start opening up.”
  — Ramya Shastri [09:15]

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Looking Ahead

Vasco hints at the next episode focusing on the critical role of the Product Owner, promising discussions on anti-patterns, support strategies, and real-life examples of exemplary Product Owners. Stay tuned to further enhance your Scrum Mastery skills!

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Transcript

[A]

Hi, I'm your host, Vasco Duart. Welcome to the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast where we share tips and tricks from Scrum Masters around the world. Every day, we bring you inspiring answers to important questions that all Scrum Masters face day after day. Hello, everybody. Welcome to our success. Thursday, the big question of the week, this week with Ramya Shastri. Hey, Ramya. Welcome back.

[B]

Hi, Vasco. Thank you so much for having me.

[A]

Absolutely. So, Ramya, we've talked a lot about other aspects of Scrum Mastery. Today we're going to talk about success, what success means. But before we dive into that, do share with us what's your favorite retrospective format and why?

[B]

Okay, so if you talk about the retrospectives, right? I mean, you won't like. You may not like what I would be saying, but then, honestly, I typically don't have any one particular format or favorite format. The reason being, I mean, this is not something I'm bragging about myself, but this is what I believe. And I practice, I ensure that throughout the sprint, I provide an environment to the team members that people are open to share ideas. And I believe that we need, or we fall back to any retrospective format because we find it difficult to open team members up. And that's the reason why we say that we'll come up with some fancy formats and we will say that when we ask some things indirectly, probably people will open up, right? And I mean, this is what my theory is. I mean, that's the reason why I don't typically plan my retrospectives in a way that come up with formats, because I've seen Scrum Masters spending so much of their creativity and energy in coming up with the formats. And that's the least thing that I, that I have in my mind. So what I try to do is I just enter the retrospective meeting or even, even. Even though if it is virtual. One thumb rule I have is everyone should be coming on video. That's one thing. So that is if you, if any format that you want me to talk about. This is one thumb rule I have. Everyone should come on video. That is one. Second thing is I try to open up the conversation by not talking about the work first in retrospective, typically. So I try to just check that, okay, how was your week and what did you do? What was the exciting thing that you, that you have done or which movie you have watched? All those things. So when the team is now kind of warmed up for the conversation, when I know that, okay, everyone is chilling and they are okay with, then I open up Saying that, okay, guys, how was this sprint like, right? I mean, what was that pain area that you would not want to face again? Or what is that one typical learning that you want to share? So these are the conversations I try to have, but the example, I mean, in the other episode, I talked about coming up with the team building activities, right? So instead of me coming up with some activity or a format, I asked team members if they want to do it in a particular format. I asked them that, can you work on some retrospective ideas? Think this as an opportunity wherein we are celebrating the wins of the sprint, right? So we are celebrating each one of us. So I ensure that if there was something good that has happened, if there was anything good happened in the. In the sprint, I ensure that I call that out. I ensure that I give a round of applause to that person who has achieved that or the team who has contributed that. And if there is some failure, I ensure that we address it as a team together and not blame anyone. We just discuss it as a learning and we discuss it as a root cause analysis, right? So I don't plan my retrospective formats. I open up for the teams to come up with any format that they may like.

[A]

Absolutely. And for me, what's interesting from what you just described is this set of rules, right? Because once you understand, like what makes a retrospective work for you, then you can basically shape any format to fit that set of rules. And I think those rules are incredibly important guidelines that anyone can use and put in practice quite simply. Now, of course, we do those retros because we want teams to succeed and hopefully also succeed ourselves as Scrum Masters. But before we can get there, we need to be very crystal clear about what success means. So, Ramya, for you, what does success mean for a Scrum Master?

[B]

Okay, so for me, the success of the role as a Scrum Master depends upon the project or the teams that I work with, right? So what success looks like for one team may not be the success for others, right? So when I work with teams, first of all, even when I. Even before I get into that opportunity, right, I sit and discuss this with the hiring manager. When I say hiring manager, it could be the project manager or maybe delivery, whoever is looking after the delivery of that entire team or project, right? And I ask them what the success of my role looks like to you, I try to understand the expectations that that manager has from me as a Scrum Master. So whatever with when I say that, when I ask this question, then they come up with all the challenges that they are Facing, right? So when I list down those challenges, I know that, okay, these are the challenges according to say so and so person. I know that, okay, these are the things that I want to kind of bring efficiency, right? So then I talk to the team members and if they also have some set of challenges or even the customer, they would have been. They would have their own set of challenges. Then I discuss these things with the team together and then we prioritize those things. So the moment those challenges are prioritized and the moment those challenges are addressed, then for me, I have been successful in that too. So when I say I have addressed those challenge not necessary, I'm going there and fixing the challenge one by one. I'm enabling team members to address those challenges. And when they do that, obviously they will achieve their success as a team together, they will deliver value to the customer. Because when I mentioned that I'm going to discuss the challenges, I mentioned that I talk to each and every participant in that team, right? Be it customers, shareholders, stakeholders, managers, the team members, whoever is part of, responsible for the delivery as a team together, right? So I talk to each one of them and try to address those challenges. So when those challenges are addressed, then for me, I am successful as a Scrum Master.

[A]

When you talk to teams like, I imagine that with managers, you're going to talk about, okay, what does success mean? What is it that you want to achieve, but how do you really get them to be maybe even concrete, I guess I could say, because when I talk to managers, I very often get the impression that they just want the team to do Scrum and that's enough, right? There's this lack of understanding of why are we doing Scrum? Why do we want Scrum to be the method or the framework that we use in this organization? What's your experience? How do you help managers really verbalize that success definition?

[B]

Correct. So typically, the answer that I get from the managers, why are we doing Scrum? So they say, because our client wants us to do Scrum. So that's a typical answer. So it's like, if the customer is happy, we are happy to do whatever, but the customer has to be happy. That's the typical answer any manager would give, right? And I have realized this early on that, see, when I say our role as a Scrum master, our role, our kind of responsibility is not only towards the team, the Scrum team, right? As I mentioned, whoever is working together as a team, team to deliver that value to the customer, including the customer, we are our kind of responsibility. Is towards each one of them. So when I say that I'm going to talk to the customer and try trying to solve their problems, I'm trying to understand what they are facing challenges with. Right. In so in whatever capacity I can help them to solve those problems, I'll do that. Similarly for managers, typically I try to kind of treat them as a team member, any team member. So I try to ask them what is that is bothering you in your role? Right. Why is that you are stuck up with what you are stuck up with. Right. So they will say, you know what I am finding difficulty in achieving, say this report. Try to help them in that particular report. So and most of the Scrum Master, what they try to do is they treat the project managers and delivery managers as enemies of Scrum Master. It's like them versus us kind of a thing. But then we need to understand even they are like stakeholders for us. Like team, even the customer is a stakeholder. The managers are also stakeholders. So if you're trying to help them solve their own problems the way you do your to your team members, then if you talk to them as someone who is going to help them is when they'll start opening up. So typically it's like the answers that I get from the managers is like, you know what, I want my team to be succeeding in delivering value, in delivering that result every sprint. I don't want any kind of a deviation. Right. For them it's like past scope and timeline. So for them those boundaries have to be met. Right. So these are the challenges that they face.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. And it is really about uncovering what their goals are in a language that makes sense to them. Right. Like you talked about, the customer is happy. Okay, that's very high level. Let's go deeper into that. Right. And then delivering value every sprint. Okay, that's cool. But what does value mean for you? Right. And that kind of conversation and the ability to have that conversation can become very much a superpower for us as Scrum Masters if we want to be successful at the role that we have.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Thank you for sharing that Ramya.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Part of a successful Scrum Master job is to help the product owner. Tomorrow we explore that critical role in Scrum. The product owner role. Tune in to learn about product owner anti patterns, what you can do to help the product owner and a real life example of what a great product owner is and what made it so. Tomorrow on our Friday product owner episode. See you tomorrow. We really hope you liked our show and if you did, why not rate this podcast on Stitcher or itunes. Share this podcast and let other Scrum Masters know about this valuable resource for their work work. Remember that sharing is caring.