Scrum adoption, just like any other process or framework, is not free from troubles. Especially when organizations are already in the middle of a problematic situation.
In this episode, we review several anti-patterns of Scrum adoption, including hierarchic struggles, abusing the Scrum roles to make them just another set of titles, the extreme attention to the Product Owner role, and many others.
About Tilman Rumland
Tilman Rumland is an agile coach, expert speaker, and productivity enthusiast. He just released his new workshop series: “getting shit done that really matters to you”. As a scrum master, he implemented agile structures to agrilution, a small scale vertical farming startup, ranked on the Forbes TOP 100 innovative German Startups. (www.agrilution.com)
Hi, Tilman and Vasco.
Tilman, I don’t think you should feel like you were incapable of dealing with the situation that you recounted in this episode. In my opinion it’s crucial that we as scrum masters remember that we are working with a team of individuals. You can put individuals in a team, put them through team building exercises and frequently review and adapt their communication techniques, but you cannot guarantee that any team will be successful. While the team may set a common goal and agree to adhere to certain values, each individual will still have his/her own goals, values and motivators in addition to a unique personality.
Introducing Agile and Scrum to an organization is not just about a process change, but rather a mindset and culture change. Agile and Scrum will not work for everyone. If an individual feels as though they are no longer a fit for the company due to the mindset and culture change, they may choose to leave the company. It’s not our job to make people like Agile or Scrum, it’s our job to present the potential value of the agile mindset and scrum framework in a clear, actionable way.
Hey Kelly, Tilman wanted to drop you a line with his thoughts on your comment. Here you have it:
From Tilman:
Hi Kelly,
thank you very much for sharing your thought with us.
I appreciate that you have empathy for me and I agree with you that to some extend certain things are not within our powers, especially when it comes to individuals with a free will. Nevertheless, I feel it would be a bit too easy for me to not take full responsibility for the development of the situation. You said that it is not just about changing processes but implementing a change in culture and mindset. I could not agree more with you on this! But for this very reason, I feel that I could have done something different since the beginning of the end in this situation started from a misconception and subsequent acting out of the Product Owners role from a lack of understanding of its underlying philosophy. I know that it would not have been my fault if people refuse to adopt a philosophy they simply do not want to adopt. But I feel like I could have been more aware of the situation in the first place and react on a team as well as individual level to assist guidance in de-escalating the situation better. And in case it really was an unavoidable mismatch in philosophy I still could have protected the rest of the team earlier and not wait for the person to cause too much damage until they finally decide to leave the rest hurt with the mess they created to satisfy their personal woundedness and misperceived sense of importance.
I hope you can make sense of what i am trying to say but I highly appreciate your kind words and understanding for me and the situation.
All the best,