How can a Scrum Master help the team in creating high Value Increment ?
Yes! It's really interesting that though like a Product Owner, a Scrum Master doesn't interact with the end user to understand the user requirements or problems or even doesn't much interact with the Stakeholders to get their feedback and unlike Developers, a Scrum Master also never develops & deliver Valuable Increment, so the question rises that if the Scrum Master is neither accountable for Product Backlog Management nor Development, how a Scrum Master can help the team in creating high Value Increment.
Read More : How are Scrum Values interconnected to each other !
I believe, one word which answers the question is "Facilitation".
Yes! You are right. Scrum Master facilitates the Product Owner in creating effective Product Goal & Product Backlog Management meanwhile also facilitates the Scrum team to turn an idea into Value as well as facilitates the Stakeholder's collaboration with the Scrum Team whenever needed for inspection and adaptation.
Let's understand it with an enchanting example, a mother may not be too much educated to teach her children to get good marks but we all know a mother facilitates their children with all possible ways to get good marks by clearing impediments such as by providing a study space & table light, a glass of milk for better memory, maintaining silent environment, boosting the kid's confidence and so on. Here, Mother acts as a Scrum Master who facilitates her Children (Developers) by clearing impediments that help her children to study hard and write papers properly to deliver good marks (Value).
Read More : Why is a Scrum Master called True Leader in Scrum Guide 2020 !
As we all might have gone through Scrum Guide 2020, which asserts that Scrum Master is accountable to establish Scrum within Scrum Team & Organization as well as to increase the effectiveness of the Scrum Team within Scrum Framework. Now, 2 questions which may pop up in our mind are how a Scrum Master can help the team to adopt & practice Scrum and how a Scrum Master can help the Scrum Team to increase its effectiveness within Scrum framework.
Related : How does a Product Owner contribute to make the Increment, Valuable !
One of Scrum Master's accountability is, How a Scrum Master can establish Scrum within the team & the organization ?
I believe a Scrum Master should inculcate a healthy Scrum Culture within the team & the organization where the team understands & embodies Scrum Values, Scrum Theory, Scrum Rules & Practices. The most important part is that a Scrum Master should create an opportunity for the team to live those Scrum Values & Theory which can only be possible when the Scrum Team practices Scrum Values & Theory everyday in every Sprint during each of the Scrum Ceremonies as well as during self-managing & cross-functioning in order to deliver Value based Increment over Volume based Increment.
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Time to time, even during Scrum Retrospective, a Scrum Master should also set up a stage for Scrum Team to discuss the benefits of complex software development using Scrum so that the Scrum Team gets a clear picture about the significance of Scrum and can also clear their doubts. A Scrum Master should organize seminars, group meetings, one to one meetings, agile game events, Scrum guide based question answer sessions, PPT presentation, guest lectures by most successful Scrum Teams of the organization or by industrial experts to make the team learn from the real time examples about how Scrum philosophy increases the scope of learning and meanwhile decreases the risk of cost and effort to small time frame by allowing continuous iterations & increments in small cycles to develop a complex Value based Product over Volume based Product.
Read More : Is your organization following Scrum or Mini Waterfall within Scrum Framework !
As per Scrum Guide 2020, Developers should own the Sprint Backlog that means the ownership of Sprint Backlog is in the hand of Develops but in most cases it doesn't happen so I believe Scrum Master should create a healthy Scrum environment & nudge the Developers to take the Ownership of Sprint Backlog. I believe we should pull something from the work culture of Amazon where Jeff Bezos facilitates each of their employees to take "Ownership of their Work" & do more & more "customer centric Obsession".
In a good Scrum Team, a Scrum Master reminds the developers for the accountability of their Sprint Backlog while in a great Scrum Team, developer holds developer accountable for the Sprint Backlog.
Read More : How to calculate Velocity on a day basis in Scrum ?
Let's understand it with an enchanting example, suppose the Main Chef (Product Owner) pulls an order of spicy "Tomato Soap" from the customer and pushes the order to the junior chefs (developers) who pull the order to prepare (develop) spicy "Tomato Soap". Meanwhile the Main Chef (Product Owner) also pushes a set of tomatoes & needed spices (Product Backlog items) to the junior chefs (developers ) to make the Tomato Soap (Sprint Goal) which the junior chefs (developers) pull accordingly. Now the junior chefs (developers) need to take the ownership of Sprint Backlog which encompasses tomatoes & the spices (Product Backlog items) to make the Tomato Soap (Sprint Goal) within a given time (Sprint).
Ream More : Value communication over Volume Communication following Lean
Scrum Master should also coach a Product Owner about Scrum and ensure that the Product Owner also lives Scrum Values. According to Scrum Guide, a Product Owner should behave like one of the Scrum Team members rather than a Manager who always believes in command and control philosophy for developing a Product.
Indeed Scrum Values are also very helpful to a Product Owner where Product owner Focuses on the customer’s problems & requirements, Commits to stakeholders to deliver Value in a Sprint, Opens to the Scrum Team about the Product Goal & the Product Backlog Items, Respects the feedback of both the Stakeholders & the Scrum Team & shows Courage to optimize the Value of the Product resulting from the work of the Scrum Team.
In fact the first litmus test of Product Owner about practicing Scrum can be evaluated from the Product Owner's way of customer observation, engagement, & insinuation to find out "End User problem or requirements" because if the Product Owner's findings is wrong, the whole Design - Development - QA will yield Volume based Increment over Value Based Increment at the end of a Sprint which could be a waste for the end user.
Read More : Significance of Iterations & Increments in Scrum
Add on to that, Stakeholders should also be trained to adopt & understand Scrum so that Stakeholders also practice agility actively & frequently to share their requirements, feedback and queries with the Product Owner at any point of a Sprint for the development of Valuable Increment.
As a clap (development of Valuable Increment) demands both the hands i.e a right hand (Scrum Team) as well as a left hand (Stakeholders).
Who makes decisions in Scrum ?
A Scrum Master should make the Scrum Team understand that it is the developers who should make decisions in a Sprint as together they are playing football and making goals (turning Product Backlog items together into Value) so they know the situation better than the coach (Product Owner or Scrum Master) who are seating and watching the game outside of the playground, about when & who (self-managing) need to push & pull the ball from one another so that the players (Developers) can confuse their competitors and get success to make the goal (achieve Sprint Goal) i.e to deliver Valuable Increment. So the answer of "Who makes the Decision" helps the Scrum Master to insinuate whether a Team is marching on an Agile path or on a Waterfall path and hence should guide the team accordingly based on empiricism.
Read More : Why a delivered solution may not always be a Value !
One another Scrum Master's accountability is, How can a Scrum Master help a Scrum Team to improve its effectiveness within a Scrum Framework ?
I believe following are the ways where a Scrum Master should help the team to improve its effectiveness
a) Recommending the Product Owner to use new techniques to engage with the customers and understand the end user core problem & requirements in a more better way as that is the first and foremost criteria to deliver the usable Increment as the Scrum Guide 2020 says that "the Increment is only Valuable when it is used by the end user".
b) Facilitating the Product Owner in creating effective Product Backlog Management which should be focused on the following criteria like 1. customer satisfaction 2. business revenue 3. Online traffic & conversion 4. risk & uncertainties 5. cost
c) Ensuring that developers are empowered & always get an opportunity to self-manage in order to use their collective intelligence to make their decisions and adapt as soon as they inspect any deviation rather than being spoon fed.
d) Encouraging industrial standard coding, Pair programming, Peer Review, Pair Ownership (where 2 developers take the Ownership of a Product Backlog item right from Design - Development - QA till its release), Pair Presentation at Sprint Retrospective, WIP limit for better self-managing & cross-functioning and to avoid multi-tasking.
e) Organizing team based games like volleyball game where the team collaborates together to play & win the game. Even Organizing Scrum Quiz competition where the team collaborates to discuss together to answer question.
f) Organizing events where the developers mirror themselves about what talent they possess beyond the boundary of Development like painting & music events, GK quizzes, story telling, jokes & so on to open the right brain of the developers for creativity & leadership.
g) Do genuine appreciation to the respective Scrum team members for their valuable contribution & for the help and guidance by them to their peer team members to keep the team motivated & vibrant.
h) Create a healthy conversation environment where the team’s conflict is focused on ideas over attitude & anger to discover diverge aspects of customer problem & possible solutions to finally converge the most precise core problem & solution.
i) Ensure that the discussion is focused towards the Sprint Goal and everybody participates in it. Meanwhile create a safe environment for introverts, extroverts & ambiverts so that every member of the team feels safe to share their unsafe views either by telling or writing.
Finally I want to add my opinion that by using the above tools & techniques, a super Scrum Master should create an environment where the Scrum Team accomplishes their accountability for Valuable Product Development with pleasure over pressure.
Read More : What do you deliver, Value! or Volume !
