Friday, December 30, 2011

A delicate issue

Today, we had SM CoP and I was faced with a small however delicate issue.
On the one hand, the team and me “know” each other for barely two weeks. I do trust the team, they are really great people eager to do a good job and become true experts in their field. At the same time, I am not sure to which extend the team members trust me (yet?). So, I would say, we are in the beginning of building the relationship.
On the other hand, other Scrum Masters want to learn and see how I am doing my work. This exchange of info did already happen through discussions and I saw some others join during daily scrum. Now, one SM wanted to join in upcoming workshops, the next one being my first intermediate sprint retro (more about that soon). I tried to explain that even though I am happy that somebody is interested to join, I felt that it was a bit too early for that, and that the my relationship with the team is just building up thus maybe not mature enough.
My worry was whether the team members will be as open with “strangers” in the workshop as they would be without. In the end, there might be relationships in the organization which I am not aware of at this point.
In my quick opportunity and risk analysis, I saw little opportunity (having an observer present) and medium risk (workshop will not bring value to the team members) and decided to facilitate the workshop alone.

Two issues about the continuation: (A) the team and me already agreed to have more workshops and there will be space in the future for other Scrum Masters to join and learn and (B) I propose learning by doing i.e., by co-facilitating workshops, and not just observing. I think that this approach in combination with reflection (of the facilitation etc.) would be more suitable.

(on the blog itself: ok – I got it – many people do not like white on black, and as I write my blog and not read it from the web, I decided to change the layout to black on light background – I hope reading is now easier)

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