B (4:09)

I think that gratitude aspect, the appreciation practice is something that we don't give enough attention to. So I'm really thankful that you brought that up also, because in the context of the Tuesday episode, the retrospective is a critical place for us to continuously build trust. Not just when it's gone, but also even if it's there to continuously amplify that trust. Because trust is what makes teams speed up. Right. Like there's this speed of trust book by. Is it McCovey? I'll have to check out the book.

C (4:50)

But.

B (4:51)

But that trust is what really over time increases the collaboration, increases the understanding and increases ultimately the speed of delivery for the teams.

C (5:03)

That's true. And of course I feel that at the end of the day, we all are working and we do work because it sustains us, but we also work to see the good we are doing around. And when I realize as the human being that, hey, I made a little bit of difference for you, it makes the other person super motivated both ways that AI should keep on doing it because it is making the other person better. And of course it is making me in a place where I'm also contributing. So it's a very good feeling, a very sweet feeling to be in that it is a two way street for all the individuals.

B (5:38)

Yeah, absolutely. So this trust that we want to build with the help of Retrospectives is. Is something that helps us as Scrum Masters be successful. But how would we know? So on Thursdays, we want to focus on that question. How would we know? So the question for you, Prablin, is how do you evaluate yourself and your own success as a Scrum Master?

C (6:03)

I honestly want to share a conversation for this one. In one of the teams I was working, we were at a point where we were in production and the team was delivering relentlessly. And at that point, we were not even having the space to sit down with each other, each other as a team. But of course, we have a set of rules and SOPs before we get into the production. And one of the team members, he just walked up to me and he said, this is not going to work out. And he sat me down, he sat the PO down and he had an extensive conversation, and then we had the conversation with the entire team. The reason he was suggesting that this is not going to work out is because we were at the middle layer in the API creation team, so we had to have the deliveries coming from the first layer to us so that we give it to the last layer. But there were a little delays in that situation. At that point, I realized that I have really succeeded as a Scrum Master because the team is comfortable enough telling me that this is not working out. And he didn't come to me or to the PO and to the EM eventually with a lot of distress or anger. He was actually conscious that this is not going to work out. This is what I think we can do better, and let's have a conversation about it. So that was the point. I understood that I must be doing something right. So my idea of success as a Scrum Master is that when you look around, you see motivated people, and when something goes wrong, they are the people who come to you, not in anger, not with any other emotion, but with concern that we are going to fail as a team if this is not set right. So that's my success matrix.

B (7:51)

Yeah, absolutely. That openness of first detecting the problem so that foresight is very important, but then not being afraid of it and trying to fix it on your own, in hiding so that no one can see it, but actually opening up the conversation, allowing others to bring their perspective in, and then solving it together as a team, I think that shows enormous maturity and in my book, also the contribution of the Scrum Master, because it takes effort, it takes time, and it takes practical approaches to be able to create this openness to talk about problems that in this case, they haven't even happened yet. Yep, there was a beautiful way to illustrate it.

C (8:40)

I often feel that when it comes to the success of the team, especially people do get down to how many features were delivered. Was there a marker of story points which the team has touched, or any other metric which tells them they have pushed a lot of increments? But then that's of course a matrix to look at when it comes to stakeholders and when they want to see the completion of the product. But for the Scrum Master, I believe that those numbers could be reflective. Yes, but then we have to see that with every passing sprint how well the team is responding to change. And if that is happening, very well. This means that the team is working like a team. So that's another way to look at the same aspect.

B (9:25)

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing that with us, Pravlin.

C (9:31)

Thank you.

A (9:34)

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