Sónia Won: From Guide to Coach, How to Nurture Team Autonomy as a Scrum Master

In this episode, Sónia discusses success as a Scrum Master, emphasizing the goal of becoming unnecessary for the team. Similar to parenting, the Scrum Master’s role evolves over the team’s life cycle. Initially, the Scrum Master guides the team, but over time, the stance changes to that of a mentor and coach. Sónia looks for signs of team autonomy, such as not depending on the Scrum Master for daily activities or resolving impediments. Adapting to the team’s growth is crucial for the Scrum Master’s effectiveness. The ultimate measure of success is when the team can function independently and no longer relies heavily on the Scrum Master’s interventions.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The 4 L’s retrospective

Sónia’s favorite retrospective format is the 4 L’s: Learned, Lacked, Liked, and Longed for. This format helps teams consider four important aspects often overlooked in retrospectives, especially the “learned” part. It encourages a more nuanced understanding of positive outcomes and avoids binary thinking. By reflecting on what they learned, lacked, liked, and longed for, the team gains valuable insights and can set mid-term development goals for continuous improvement.

How can I, as a Scrum Master, supercharge my facilitation?

Retrospectives, planning sessions, vision workshops, we are continuously helping teams learn about how to collaborate in practice! In this Actionable Agile Tools book, Jeff Campbell shares some of the tools he’s learned over a decade of coaching Agile Teams. The pragmatic coaching book you need, right now! Buy Actionable Agile Tools on Amazon, or directly from the author, and supercharge your facilitation toolbox!

About Sónia Won

Sónia is an experienced professional with 17 years in Software Engineering. She has held roles as a Software Engineer, Scrum Master, and Agile Coach for a decade. Currently, as a Product Owner, she values teamwork and recognizes the significance of prioritizing people in any endeavor.

The big lesson she’s learned so far: no matter how complex a subject can be, the most important thing is to take care of people. Because teams, companies, and communities are made of those!

You can link with Sónia Won on LinkedIn and connect with Sónia Won on Twitter.

Shahin Sheidaei: How to assess if an Agile team is ready to get more autonomy from the Scrum Master

Even if Scrum Masters can focus on “working themselves out of a job”, the fact is that not many teams can get to that level, and even the ones that can get there, it’s not easy to find out when is the right time to step back. In this segment, we talk about what it means for a team to be self-sufficient, and how Scrum Masters can evaluate if the team is ready to be given more autonomy.

Featured Retrospective Format for the Week: The 5 Why’s and some caveats when facilitating that format

Shahin starts by sharing a key lesson about making the Retrospectives adjust to the team, and their mood, instead of asking the team to adjust to the Retrospective format we prepared in advance.

In this segment, we talk about the 5 Why’s Retrospective, and some of the caveats we must take into account when facilitating that kind of Retrospectives.

Do you wish you had decades of experience? Learn from the Best Scrum Masters In The World, Today! The Tips from the Trenches – Scrum Master edition audiobook includes hours of audio interviews with SM’s that have decades of experience: from Mike Cohn to Linda Rising, Christopher Avery, and many more. Super-experienced Scrum Masters share their hard-earned lessons with you. Learn those today, make your teams awesome!

About Shahin Sheidaei

Shahin Sheidaei is an Agile, Lean and Success Coach,International Speaker, Transformation Expert, and Entrepreneur.

Shahin is a passionate organizational designer focusing on organizational performance, and is also founder and principal coach at Elevate Change Inc.

You can link with Shahin Sheidaei on LinkedIn and connect with Shahin Sheidaei on Twitter.

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