A (4:18)

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 (5:00)

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 (7:25)

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 (8:05)

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 (10:36)

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 (11:05)

Absolutely.

A (11:07)

Thank you for sharing that Ramya.

B (11:10)

Thank you.

A (11:15)

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.