From Process Police to People Partner, Self-Accountability and Self-Awareness for Scrum Masters | Anuj Ojha

Summary

Podcast Summary: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast – "From Process Police to People Partner, Self-Accountability and Self-Awareness for Scrum Masters | Anuj Ojha"

Release Date: March 3, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte, a seasoned Agile Coach and Certified Scrum Master, engages in a profound conversation with Anuj Ojha, the co-founder and lead consultant at Benzene Consulting. Anuj brings over fifteen years of experience in agile environments, offering invaluable insights into the transformative journey from being a process-centric Scrum Master to becoming a people-focused leader.

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Guest Background: Anuj Ojha

Anuj Ojha introduces himself as a framework-agnostic, purpose-driven, and data-driven Agile professional with more than a decade of consulting experience. His journey into Scrum mastery began 15 years ago in Norway, transitioning from a software engineer to a Scrum Master—a role that unexpectedly triggered a profound personal and professional transformation.

Key Quote:

"That's when the journey triggered my balance and led to a spiritual awakening inside me over the course of time."
— Anuj Ojha [02:53]

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Early Challenges as a Scrum Master

Anuj recounts his initial foray into the Scrum Master role, highlighting the struggles and misconceptions he faced. He was deeply entrenched in the mechanics of Scrum, focusing on tools like Jira, burn-down charts, and strict adherence to ceremonies. This approach, though widely accepted, led to personal tension and team disengagement.

Key Quote:

"I was trying to please everyone... acting like a priest who understands Scrum, telling people what commandments they need to follow."
— Anuj Ojha [04:05]

Anuj realized that his obsession with processes and metrics was detracting from the core purpose of agility, which is to foster a functional, aligned team striving towards shared goals rather than merely checking tasks off a list.

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The Turning Point: Self-Reflection and Awareness

The pivotal moment in Anuj's journey was his self-awareness of the disconnect between his actions and the true essence of being a Scrum Master. He recognized that his primary challenge was internal, dealing with personal biases and the need to transition from a "Process Police" to a "People Partner."

Key Quote:

"It wasn't about fixing the team's problems; it was about fixing my own inner problems, my biases driving me."
— Anuj Ojha [06:04]

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Transformation Journey: From Process to People

Anuj outlines a three-step journey that facilitated his transformation:

1. Acknowledgment:
   Recognizing and admitting the existence of personal shortcomings and the ineffective approach he was taking.

   Key Quote:

   "I wanted to acknowledge that I am not meaningful or purposeful to my team in certain ways."
   — Anuj Ojha [09:25]

2. Realization:
   Seeking feedback through individual interviews, group sessions, and observing other Scrum Masters. This phase involved deep introspection and external input to understand his impact and areas for improvement.

3. Actualization:
   Implementing small, meaningful changes such as active listening and encouraging team-driven solutions. Anuj emphasized the importance of constructive conflict and probing questions to foster a more collaborative and result-oriented environment.

Key Quote:

"I don't want to put Agile lipstick on the face of the teams and projects; I wanted to find out how can it be meaningful for us to reach the end goal or being more result-oriented."
— Anuj Ojha [09:25]

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Embracing Leadership and Servant Leadership

Anuj discusses the responsibility of Scrum Masters as leaders who model the right behaviors. He differentiates between traditional management and servant leadership, emphasizing that true leadership lies in empowering teams and facilitating their growth rather than enforcing processes.

Key Quote:

"We are leaders. We are not necessarily managers or hierarchical managers, but we are leaders showing with our example, the right behaviors."
— Vasco Duarte [11:55]

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Takeaways and Lessons Learned

Anuj's story serves as a powerful reminder that effective Scrum Masters must prioritize self-awareness and continuous personal growth. By shifting focus from rigid processes to fostering a supportive and collaborative team environment, Scrum Masters can better unlock their team's potential and drive meaningful outcomes.

Key Insights:

• Self-Accountability: Recognizing personal biases and areas for improvement is crucial for effective leadership.
• Active Listening: Being more of a listener than a talker can significantly enhance team dynamics and problem-solving.
• Constructive Conflict: Encouraging healthy debates prevents superficial harmony and promotes genuine progress.
• Purpose-Driven Agility: Aligning team efforts with the broader purpose and goals ensures sustained motivation and success.

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Conclusion

In this enlightening episode, Anuj Ojha shares his transformative journey from a process-oriented Scrum Master to a people-centric leader, underscoring the importance of self-accountability and self-awareness in agile practices. His experiences offer valuable lessons for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches striving to enhance their effectiveness and foster thriving team environments.

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About the Global Agile Summit

Towards the end of the episode, Vasco promotes the Global Agile Summit—an event designed to combat Agile fatigue by featuring real-life success stories and actionable insights from over 200 Agile professionals worldwide. Scheduled to take place in Tallinn, Estonia, the summit includes various tracks focused on Agile Business, Agile Product, and Agile Development, offering attendees opportunities to learn, connect, and elevate their Agile practices.

For more information and to register, visit globalagilesummit.com.

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and transformative experiences shared by Anuj Ojha, providing a comprehensive overview for those who haven't listened to the episode.

Transcript

[Vasco]

Have you ever wondered what it really takes to make Agile work well? At the Global Agile Summit, we're bringing you real life first person stories of Agile succeeding out there in the real world that will inspire you to take action. Whether you're a leader, a product innovator, a developer, you'll hear practical insights from those who've done it. They'll be telling their own stories from the stage. I'll tell you more about this at the end of this episode. So stay back and listen to the full detailed description of what we have in store for you at the Global Agile Summit. But if you can't wait, you can go right now to globalagilesummit.com and check out our full schedule for now onto the episode. But I'll see you at the end of this episode with more details on the Global Agile Summit. Talk to you soon.

[Fran]

Hello everybody.

[Vasco]

Welcome to one more week of the.

[Fran]

Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. And this week, joining us from the beautiful city of Bangalore in India is Anuj Oja.

[Vasco]

Hey Anuj, welcome to the show.

[Anuj Oja]

Thank you, Vasku. Thank you for having me.

[Fran]

Absolutely. So for all of you to know Anuj a little better, he is the co founder and lead consultant at Benzene Consulting. With more than a decade of consulting experience and also many years of setting up agile environments, Anuj and his team partner with businesses to unlock their true potential and drive continuous growth. Anuj also considers himself framework agnostic, purpose and data driven. So Anush, that was a little short intro to you. Tell me a little bit more about yourself and also, how did you end up becoming a Scrum Master?

[Anuj Oja]

Thank you so much Vasko. It happened many years back. It's 15 years back when I was in Norway. I've spent a couple of years there and I went there as a software engineer and then one of the leaders found out that Anuj, you should be the Scrum Master of the team. And I asked him, why? What is Scrum Master? It sounds so fancy. Am I going to be the master of all? And so on. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. It's a Scrum that we apply here and I believe you can help our team in identifying the bottlenecks and also in bringing agility, which is about continuously moving towards the right direction. And that's when I got started with my new role as Scrum Master along with playing the role of engineering engineer as well. And never know how I look back after that because that's when the journey trigger found my balance. And I believe it also led into a spiritual awakening inside me over the course of time. So that's how it is possible.

[Fran]

Absolutely. And interesting journey. Of course, that also expose you to many different cultures, which is a very important aspect for Scrum Masters. After all, we need to work with people from many different cultures these days. Software is developed all over the world, as you just illustrated, Anuj. So of course that also brings its own dynamics and challenges. And as Scrum Masters, we of course need to go through those in our journey. I mean, after all, we are always learning and learning does take its ups and downs. So let's explore one of those difficult stories that you went through, Anura story of a difficult moment you had as a Scrum master. Tell us a little bit about the context and tell us that story first. We'll dive into the details and the takeaways later, but share that story with us.

[Anuj Oja]

Oh, I love telling stories. Thank you, Vasco. This is the time when I step into this role. I was trying to explore myself and then situation happened when I got tense. I was running behind Jira. I was running behind, making reports, I was getting.

[Vasco]

What was that?

[Fran]

What was triggering that for you, Anush? Like you just said, I got tense. I was running behind Jira. Like what triggered that? What was the feeling that was there?

[Anuj Oja]

So it was the feeling where I was looking outside when I saw that people are not doing the right thing. The leadership is coming with a lot of changes. And when I later explored that it was not the problem outside, it was problem inside me because I was trying to please everyone. I was trying to act like a priest who understands Scrum. And I have to tell people that, you know what, these are the different commandments that you need to follow. You know what, this is wrong. Hey, when you stand, you should stand like this. So that was a time that we were not having remote meetings. And when I found out that come on, I'm distracted from the focus, I'm distracted from the core. And I was trying to figure out more through the reports, the burn down chart, the velocity. And I later felt that this was not. It was all meant to be. It's meant to be knowing that how functional we are as a team and are we aligned with the common shared goals. But it's not about taking the task from the checklist. It's not about just having a backlog and having these five acceptance criterias and then having a 15 minutes in the daily scrum and then having all the five ceremonies the way to the team. And that's when I figured out no no, no, no, no. That's not how I. Because I believe, I believed I understood it wrong. So my biggest challenge there was knowing myself, exploring myself. The deeper understanding, not just of the subject, of the people, of the process, of the product, of the customers. And why in the end, this project exists altogether, not just for us to give the job and get the salaries, but there's a purpose which we need to focus on. So that's fair. I felt that my biggest challenge in this journey was not fixing the problems of the team, but it was about fixing my own inner problems, my biases, which were driving me. And then it helped me a lot into figuring out those biases.

[Fran]

So there's kind of two steps in that journey when we realize that, okay, first of all, the problem isn't outside. Like that's one step, right? Like that's an ability to self reflect. And then there's the other part, which is, okay, now what do I do with this information? Because of course then I need to transform this into action. But walk us through those steps. Like, how did you get to that point? Because I mean, one of the things that you described, you know, running around Jira and telling people what needed to be done, this is a very common and widely accepted way to behave. I mean, if I go to any project manager and I bet met most Scrum masters today, and I asked them, what do you think you should be doing every day? Many of them will point to Jira, to Velocity, and to how the team conducts themselves daily as well as in the daily standup. So how did you get to the conclusion that perhaps that was not the.

[Vasco]

Right focus for you?

[Anuj Oja]

Yes, there are a lot of reasons because of that. First of all, I would like to point out at the habits that I was into, what happened? So that when I observed myself into the conversation, I felt that every time when somebody goes wrong, I used to talk about, hey, you know, according to Scrum Guide, it's not the way how it is. And that didn't solve the problem. Vasco, it has actually made people shut down that, okay, we can also read the Scrum Guide, but doesn't make sense to us and it's not logical. And then came the point where I became a clerk master instead of a Scrum master, where I was more busy into these routines and documentation and looking at the esthetics, how the tickets have been created, and also pulling product owner into creating the backlog for the future iterations. But having said, I could have focused more on to understanding the problem, pulling everyone into deciding the solution together. Not just that product owner should act more like, you know, this is the requirement. And now it's the team who are struggling to find out. Or maybe the product owner himself herself has found out the solution and the team is just doing the job of doing that solution and not even putting their brains. That was another one. Even though I felt at times that I was just playing the role of a facilitator and when that awakening happened that what am I doing after those nine hours? Let's say in a sprint of two weeks, you are there in the daily Scrum, you are in the sprint planning, you are in the refinement review retro. And then what do you do after that? Because after nine hours you're getting paid for entire 80 hours and what you should be doing. And that's when I realized that no, no, no, no, no. It's not just about that. It's about helping people in being the better version. So those are the challenges which I saw in myself. And again, it could be triggered by the outside. It might happen that this is the way how the environment was designed. Then comes the point you have to step out and see that how could you make a change in the environment, in that mindset, in the culture that we talked about. So Vasco, I hope.

[Fran]

And that takes us to the second step. Right. Because of course first is the realization. You asked a very powerful question. What should I be doing after all of the ceremonies have been facilitated, prepared and hosted? Right. So yes. What was the next step like? That step of transformation? Where did you look for inspiration and what were the things that you tried?

[Anuj Oja]

I would say it as a three step journey. The step one for me was acknowledging there is a problem. It was. It wasn't easy because you being defensive. I have also looked up at community if you helped me out. But that time I felt that everybody who was trying to prove that they're anti waterfall, we're trying to speak their happiness into being agile. So I first told that I'm not going to just act like that. I want to acknowledge that I am not meaningful or purposeful to my team in certain ways. Then comes the second step for me was realization where I started investigating into scenarios. I started seeking feedback from the people I know in individual interviews, in group sessions even. I started observing other Scrum masters. I started started seeking certain counseling from people to know how I might be better. And then for me was actualization. I started trying to make small changes. I started being more of a listener than a talker. That was one important change, which I figured out. And then second thing, which I believe is probing. It's important for us how we frame our questions and it's important for us not to have fear of conflicts because if you do not let the conflict breed in a constructive way, then it might happen. We may end up eager go massaging each other. So for me, one realization for which I work a lot is I don't want to put Agile lipstick or scrub lipstick on the face of the teams and projects and people. I wanted to find out how can it be meaningful for us to reach the end goal or being more result oriented.

[Fran]

So that's where Vaso yeah, I really love that. I don't want to put lipstick on the face of the team of the people. And I really like the way you described that three step journey, right? Realizing there's a problem, seek for feedback, analyze what's going on, and then actually try to put something into practice. And I would say that that's a great step for anyone's growth journey, wherever they are, but especially for leaders. And we need to recognize that as Scrum masters, we have this big responsibility because we are leaders. We are not necessarily managers or hierarchical managers, but we are leaders. We are showing with our example, with our modeling of the right behaviors, how people can succeed. And if we don't do that job for ourselves, right, like you defined your three step journey, then we can't help others either. So it's a great story.

[Vasco]

Hey Fran, for sharing for staying here is all you need to know about the Global Agile Summit. If you've ever suffered or know people who are suffering from Agile fatigue, this event is for you. Agile fatigue is that feeling that settles in when we can't really see a light at the end of the tunnel. We get discouraged. Especially when conversations revolve around the same old frameworks, the same old buzzwords and theories. We don't feel that energy anymore. Well, the Global Agile Summit is a different kind of event. We're bringing you real life first person stories of Agile succeeding out there in the real world that will inspire you to take action and transform the way you work. The Global Agile Summit will happen In Tallinn, Estonia, May 18th. That's the workshop day, then 19th and 20th, the conference day. And Tallin, Estonia is one of the most innovative tech hubs in Europe. The Global Agile Summit is hosted together with Latitude 59, which is kind of a citywide celebration of software startups and groundbreaking ideas. And we'll have a shared ticket for you to attend those events as well. So who will be speaking. Well, we've got an incredible lineup of thought leaders in software and agile. For example, Clinton Keith, the person who wrote literally wrote the book on game development with Scrum and is busy bringing Agile to the world of game development. You must check his session. The very famous and well known Jurgen Apelo, author of Management 3.0, will be talking and exploring about AI's impact on leadership. We also have Goiko Adsic, who's taking an unconventional look at at product growth with his Lizard Optimization keynote. Other speakers include, for example Sven Dietz, who's challenging everything we know about software development by ditching, literally ditching contracts and estimates. Can you imagine his teams deliver software before their competitors are even done with the contract negotiation? How agile is that? But there's more. We'll cover engineering practices in our developer track with talks on, for example AI assisted test driven development, developing products in minutes with a different approach to how we develop, configure, deploy platforms, and much more. We also have a product track where we cover cutting edge ideas around product discovery, delighting customers with product delight frameworks. We'll have a talk about that. And we also have an Agile Business track where we will talk about, for example Open strategy, a very agile approach to managing organizations and delivering software faster to clients faster than you can even write a contract.

[Fran]

Literally.

[Vasco]

I mean, I already told you about Svendeet's story is amazing. It definitely is a must see. I'm sure you'll be inspired and get a lot of ideas for your own software projects and software delivery. Now, whether you're a business leader, a product innovator or a developer, you'll definitely find value in our three focused tracks. That's Agile Business for those working with businesses and organizations, Agile Product for product managers, product owners and innovators and Agile Developer for the builders making Agile work in practice. The coders, the testers, the designers, the producers, the Scrum masters, you name it. If you join, you will meet over 200 agile professionals from all over the world. People who just like you, want to grow, want to share and want to learn by challenging the ideas that don't work anymore. At the Global Agile Summit, you'll get new connections, fresh ideas and the energy to take your own Agile to the next level. And who knows, maybe even find your next career opportunity. So don't miss out. Check out the full program and grab your ticket [e-mail] I'm really looking forward to seeing you all in Tallinn, Estonia in May.

[Fran]

I'll see you there.