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Today’s Format

• Welcome – Anthony Boobier, APN Treasurer• Last session for the year: Tues 13th Dec

• Servant Leadership• Mike Lowery, Assurity

• Q&A and Discussion

Assurity Consulting LimitedIndependent provider of software testing and quality management services.

Exploring Servant Leadership

Mike LoweryAgile Coach

Why Explore this at all?

• Curiosity

• Mentioned often

• Written about rarely and in little depth within Agile world

• I think I “get Agile”, and some situations feel instinctively wrong.

• I wanted to dig a little more into this.

• Servant leadership is a very specific part of “getting” Agile

Scrum Guide

The Scrum Master

The Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring Scrum is understood and enacted. Scrum Masters do this by ensuring that the Scrum Team adheres to Scrum theory, practices, and rules. The Scrum Master is a servant-leader for the Scrum Team.

Scrum Guide

The Scrum Master serves the Development Team in several ways, including: •Coaching the Development Team in self-organization and cross-functionality; •Teaching and leading the Development Team to create high-value products; •Removing impediments to the Development Team’s progress;•Facilitating Scrum events as requested or needed; and,•Coaching the Development Team in organizational environments in which Scrum is not yet fully adopted and understood.

Agile?

Agile?

Cheesy?

What is Servant leadership

“Robert K. Greenleaf never specifically defined servant leadership but, based on the writings of Greenleaf and others, it can still be defined as:

Individuals and interactions over processes and toolsWorking software over comprehensive documentationCustomer collaboration over contract negotiationResponding to change over following a plan

a management philosophy which implies a comprehensive view of the quality of people, work and community spirit.”

Right!

You want to know my team velocity.. Wait a minute while I find the data.

It’s xx points and has been going up for the last 4 sprints

Listening

• Practice your “System” listening– Are you ignoring

what your velocity is telling you?

– Is your visible workspace showing you a waterfall project?

– Is your system is telling you what you need to know?

My views on - Listening

• Listening– Verbal - Your active listening should be at it’s most

focused at retrospectives and standups. • Explicit• Implied

– Body language• Switch off your ears sometimes and listen with your eyes,

observe body language and how people physically rather than verbally react to something/one.

– “System” listening• Are you ignoring what your velocity is telling you?• Is your visible workspace showing you a waterfall project?• Is your system is telling you what you need to know?

– For example try tracking story point acceptance on the same chart as your burndown, you can see very quickly if you have a 2 week waterfall or not.

I know how you feel, story points never made sense to me either when I first used them

Look a 3 is smaller than a 5 right!

My views on - Empathy

• “when it’s a people problem, the problem is not the problem”

It’s the dev’s choice what happens

Ok so how do you want to talk to the dev’s about taking 5 days to build a button?

My views on - Healing

• Probably the hardest part of the role

• Often seen from a Scrum Masters point of view as a line mangers job.

• If you can handle the situation then why escalate it!

Remember guys one of the Agile values is focus, forget what Project y is doing and concentrate on our work

Why don’t you go to see the team on project y and have a look at their new test tool?

My views on - Awareness

• Really get to know what is going on at all levels of a project, but not with the aim of increasing your control, but that of your team

You don’t think that 95% of a persons performance is based on the system they work in? Ok let’s play “flip the chip” and talk afterwards

As the lead on this team I am supposed to work out how you do this, we can talk later

My views on - Persuasion

• Your ability to influence by convincing people, needs to come from a base of trust, honesty and knowledge, not from organisational hierarchy or emotional blackmail.

Finish the project, we can always learn new skills while we wait for the next one to start

I know slowing delivery is an issue but automation will pay off in the long term

My views on - Conceptualisation

• Conceptualisation for me is more about how you view your Agile journey and the Agile journey you wish to take the team on.

• This might start at weeding out some excessive test documents with a view of eventually using continuous integration and deployment.

Sure take on that massive story, we sized it didn’t we, sweet

Remember what happened when we did that massive story the last time! Are you sure you want to do this?  

My views on - Foresight

• Foresight comes from knowledge and experience and the ability to observe a pattern and then translate that into an outcome.

Docs the support team will have to deal with it, we need to finish the real work

If we add docs to our definition of done then we only have to do a little bit at a time

My views on - Stewardship

• The other characteristics help us with the what and the how of servant leadership

• Stewardship is a fundamental “why”.

I get a lot of satisfaction out of developing people.

I help people develop but only if they ask me

My views on - Commitment to the growth of people

• The book “Agile retrospectives” has a strap-line ”Making good teams great!”, as servant leader should have the saying “making good people great!”

You can sit down again

I will present at the APN in the next 12 months

I will come to as many APN events as I can and ask lots of thought provoking questions 

My views on - Building community

My thoughts in detail

My views on - Listening

• Listening– Verbal - Your active listening should be at it’s most

focused at retrospectives and standups. • Explicit• Implied

– Body language• Switch off your ears sometimes and listen with your eyes,

observe body language and how people physically rather than verbally react to something/one.

– “System” listening• Are you ignoring what your velocity is telling you?• Is your visible workspace showing you a waterfall project?• Is your system is telling you what you need to know?

– For example try tracking story point acceptance on the same chart as your burndown, you can see very quickly if you have a 2 week waterfall or not.

My views on - Empathy

• Coaching is integral to the role of a Scrum Masters

• Can you really be an effective coach without understanding how other feel and thus will react to what you are saying

• “when it’s a people problem, the problem is not the problem”

My views on - Healing

• Probably the hardest part of the role• Often seen from a Scrum Masters point of

view as a line mangers job.• This line is blurred at the best of times. • My take on this is, if you can handle the

situation then why escalate it! • Helping team members resolve issues• Encouraging personal growth within

individuals and yourself• Smoothing transitions to Agile all fall under

healing’s banner.

My views on - Awareness

• Self awareness is a crucial skill for any leader

• It’s especially so for a leader who in most cases is leading without the influence

• Understanding how you act and deliver a message is crucial in conveying information well to other people

• Really get to know what is going on at all levels of a project, but not with the aim of increasing your control but that of your team

My views on - Persuasion

• The original definition focuses on the differences between persuasion and convincing. Stating that the latter is were the servant leader has their power.

• As an Agile servant leader I think that one of the hardest things we have to do is work with a team that is new to any Agile practices.

• I suggest in this case that you may need to be persuasive in order to become convincing.

• What I mean by this is that, you may need all of your skills to persuade the team to give stand ups a go.

• Once you gain their trust that all this mumbo jumbo you have been spouting actually works, it’s much easier to switch styles and convince them to try something else.

• So your ability to influence by convincing people, needs to come from a base of trust, honesty and knowledge, not from organizational hierarchy or emotional blackmail.

My views on - Conceptualisation

• This aspect of servant leadership I found particularly difficult to get my head around.

• Especially this bit on reflecting on the meaning of life, I am not I am far enough on my journey that I can equate the meaning of life to my next project.

• However where I do see this applying is when you look back at the first sentence I discussed “…implies a comprehensive view of the quality of people, work and community spirit” 

• Conceptualization for me is more about how you view your Agile journey and the Agile journey you wish to take the team on. This might start at weeding out some excessive test documents with a view of eventually using continuous integration and deployment.

My views on - Foresight

• I think foresight is a excellent characteristic for a Scrum Master but I believe that it’s not a natural gift.

• Foresight comes from knowledge and experience and the ability to observe a pattern and then translate that into an outcome.

• For example, if the team want to take on a mass of large stories and start them all at once, unless this triggers some sort of pattern recognition in your head then you will be constantly surprised (hopefully only the first time).

My views on - Stewardship

• The other characteristics help us with the what and the how of servant leadership

• Stewardship is for me a fundamental “why”

• Try to create an environment and work society that you would want all your friends to work in

• Create a workplace and style of working that you would want your children to have on their very first day at work

My views on - Commitment to the growth of people

• The first place to get a handle on this is to remember to call people, people and not resources.

• Wood and coal are resources and unless you are a slave trader people are not resources!

• If you don’t get a buzz out of seeing team members flourish and rocket past you then stop now, this type of job is really not for you

• The book “Agile retrospectives” has a strap-line ”Making good teams great!”, as servant leader should have the saying “making good people great!”

My views on - Building community

•  The way I see this, is start with your immediate team and lead them to become a strong supportive community, they will in their turn help inspire other teams to work in and behave in ways that further build the community.

Final questions?

Mike.lowery@assurity.co.nz

http://www.assurity.co.nz/agile/

021 0235 7418

@plasticlizzard

http://agilemutterings.wordpress.com/