Fixing Your Scrum by Ryan Ripley

Author:Ryan Ripley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pragmatic Bookshelf
Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf

Not Being Curious about Management’s Needs

We’ve all been there: You’re working with a manager who is against adopting Scrum. They put up roadblocks and try to maintain control and oversight over areas that Scrum teams should handle for themselves, such as architecture, design, and testing. They’ll often mandate technical solutions to the Scrum team, regardless of whether the team members agree that it’s the right approach.

It may seem like the manager is trying to make your life as a Scrum master more difficult. They aren’t.

Unfortunately, Ryan and Todd have both heard countless stories from Scrum masters about impossible-to-please managers who “just don’t get it.” And we admit that we’ve voiced these complaints ourselves. Eventually, we decided to take responsibility for such situations, and you can too.

If a manager is putting up roadblocks and resisting change, stay curious. Consider what would have to be true for someone to display the “difficult behavior” you’re seeing from this person. If you’ve followed our advice from the previous section and have fostered a relationship with this manager, ask them what they are trying to achieve.

When the person gives you an answer, truly listen to what they have to say, and then pause before responding. There have been many times in our careers where we wish we had taken a moment before responding. If the manager says something about Scrum or the way a team works that goes a little outside the tenets of Scrum, pause—instead of trying to immediately rebut what they just said. Think of a question you could ask to get to the core of what they’re trying to achieve. The question could be as simple as, “That sounds interesting; what does your idea make possible?”

Staying curious (by asking questions instead of passing judgment) is how you fulfill your role as a servant leader. In situations like this one, you’re providing coaching to those involved in the Scrum adoption—specifically, a manager. Asking questions helps you get insights from the manager about what they really need.

Here’s an example of how this technique once worked for Ryan: He was working with a manager who insisted that every Scrum team in the organization set up their team boards the exact same way. It would have been easy to instantly reject this demand, and argue with the manager about how this policy wasn’t in-line with Scrum. But instead, Ryan paused and asked, “What does a consistent team board format give you?” The manager explained that it helped him understand how the projects were going—which is a totally reasonable thing for a manager to want.

This exchange led Ryan to invite the manager to the next sprint review to hear from the Scrum team and stakeholders about the project’s progress. The manager attended the meeting and, afterward, decided that he’d rather get updates directly from the Scrum team during sprint reviews, as that gave him all the information he needed. And he agreed to let Scrum teams arrange their team boards however they liked.

Staying curious and focusing on the needs of others can take some practice.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.