Agile Notes (No. 34)

Hey, all! We are continuing our re-read of the EXCELLENT Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins. This week Chapter 6: Coach as Facilitator.

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More highlights of a crazy person, I know. Seriously, the ROI on this book is EXPONENTIAL. In this chapter, Lyssa (I’m calling her Lyssa now. Yes, like we are friends IRL). This chapter breaks down how to facilitate each of the Scrum Ceremonies in detail. The grab above is from the section “Facilitate the Stand-Up.” We talked about this a little in Note 32.

…all team members have committed to complete the work of the sprint together.

T.O.G.E.T.H.E.R.

Many of the teams I have worked on have NOT been interdependent. And this threw me a little. They were groupings of subject matter experts. If someone did not meet their Sprint commitments it did not cascade through the team. (Lots of self-discovery here this read-through, friends.)

The team MUST BE accountable to EACH OTHER either way. I think on the teams that we not interdependent we still got to that state. You met your commitments BECAUSE you were on a team of really smart, really motivated high performers. Which is an interesting twist. These teams would often rally to those struggling to meet their commitments. Where are you blocked? Then, in the After-Party (what I’ve come to call any breakout meetings happening after the Stand Up) full on troubleshooting and solutioning would happen. Have you tried this, this and this? Reach out to so-and-so, they will be able to help.

I was beginning to spiral a little there as a I dug into this passage. Like last week, I am questioning whether I have known only dysfunction and that I did not do enough to fight it.

Please share in the comments if you have gone through similar experiences. I would love to hear about the situation and what you did to overcome it.

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