I don’t know why, but I would like to share my mistake (during work time) of the day/week with you. Maybe to prevent you for making the same mistake. On the other hand, I made the mistake already a few times in my career as scrum master. Maybe confessing this mistake to the world, and you, prevents me of making the mistake again. However, I’m afraid I will the mistake again somewhere in the future.
You are probably wondering what did I do? I’m coaching a new team, they started two months ago and are all experienced with working in an agile environment. I thought I’m a great scrum master, and I know how you should work together as a team.I know what is important for you….
Hmmmmm, could be… I tried to (indirectly) convince the team that they should work as I think it should be. No surprise, they disagreed… and they are absolutely right! Who am I to say how they should work/communicate… is there any issue in the team currently? No, there isn’t… why should the team than work as I think they should…
It resulted in a discussion, that absolutely had no value. After the discussion, with only losers, I took a cup of coffee and did a short retro on myself. The conclusion is in this blog.
And now? I will take a few steps back from the team, let them find their own way. And as soon as they encounter an issue, in the process, communication or something else I can share my experience with them. It is then up to the team to decide how to improve. And I think discussing the issue with the team is already enough for them, they probably don’t need my experience. The only thing that I should do is facilitate the team to discuss the problem and find a solution. I should trust the team that they are capable of organizing themselves, and deliver quality software with a controlled process.
I know how a scrum master should act, I know that telling people what to do doesn’t work, I know I should have trust in people. Still, I make this mistake sometimes. Hopefully for the last time, if not I already apologized to you for the situation when you are part of a new team that I coach. Just remember me to this blog, “I should not push the team”.