December 19, 2024 • 24 mins
In this episode of Scrum Master Real Talk, host Dave West chats with Jim Sparks, a Scrum Master from Dayton, Ohio, about his accidental journey into agility. Jim shares how he discovered a passion for servant leadership, the evolution of his role toward delivery accountability, and how he tackles challenges like leading without authority and overcoming resistance to Scrum—especially in government and cybersecurity contexts.
Jim’s advice for Scrum Masters is simple yet profound: never stop learning, build strong networks, and approach the accountability with humility and fun. Tune in to hear Jim’s inspiring story, actionable tips, and insights on balancing servant leadership with delivery focus.
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Episode Transcript
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ScrumOrg Marketing (00:00):
Music.
(00:00):
Welcome to the scrum.orgcommunity podcast, a podcast
(00:04):
from the home of Scrum. In thispodcast, we feature professional
scrum trainers and other scrumpractitioners sharing their
stories and experiences to helplearn from the experience of
others. We hope you enjoy thisepisode. Hello
Dave West (00:20):
and welcome to the scrum.org community podcast. I'm
your host, Dave. We're CEOhere@scrum.org today's podcast
is in the scrum master Real Talkseries. It's a special series
where we want to hear from scrummaster sharing personal stories,
whether it's overcomingobstacles, creating solutions,
or critical lessons they'velearned during their during
(00:42):
their journey, how they helpedand foster agility in their
teams they've worked with andthe organizations today, we're
incredibly lucky to have Jimsparks from Dayton, Ohio in the
United States of America.
Welcome to the podcast,
jim sparks (01:00):
Jim. Thank you very much. It's actually a pleasure
to be here. Great. Well,
Dave West (01:06):
let's you should hold that judgment until the end,
Jim, but the being optimistic,right? First job of every scrum
master, be an optimist. I think.
Great. So All right, let's startat the very beginning. How did
you become? How do you think youbecome a scrum master? Well,
jim sparks (01:28):
it was actually very accidental. For a little while I
was, you know, I would callmyself an accidental Agilist,
because I was a data guy workingin Teradata SQL Server, that
type of thing. And the team Iwas starting to work with, the
scrum master was very busy atthe time. I didn't know any
(01:48):
better, but I come to find out,he was doing a lot of things
that at the time you didn'ttypically expect a scrum master
to do. So I just startedvolunteering. Hey, I can help
you with that. Let me help youwith that. How about I help you
with that? And after about fourto six weeks, he just kind of
checked that and let me go. Hejust kind of said, Here, you do
it. And he provided oversightand training and helped me, you
(02:09):
know, learn as we were going,but he let me take the reins of
that team and that work on thatproduct. So it was pretty
awesome. At that point, Istarted to learn as much as I
could. I started to absorbknowledge, read books, reading,
you know, the blog articles,watching videos, a lot of
(02:30):
scrum.org, trainers. Actually, Iwas trying to learn from to get
better at it, because I reallyfell in love with what I was was
doing. And the biggest reason Ireally resonated with me was the
servant leadership aspect of it.
I had always that was kind of mypersonality. It's who I was,
it's it's what I am in my DNAis, you know, a servant leader
(02:51):
at heart. And I'd never reallyheard of the term servant leader
until I started down the scrummaster path, and then I was
like, whoa. Someone wants to payme to do what I already do
anyway. So for me, it was a nobrainer at the time, so I jumped
into it with full force, and,you know, kind of led me to
here. So I've been through sevenand a half ish years doing this,
(03:14):
and I love everything about it.
I've learned, differentindustries, different types of
work, been in benefits andcompensation, HR, cyber
security, medical deviceindustry, a lot of different
industries, finances. And so youget to see a little bit of
(03:36):
differences in how people applyScrum and agility in general,
based on where they work. Soit's kind of fun. It's been a
lot of fun for me. It's
Dave West (03:46):
been a fun journey.
So, so when you first got intothe job, as it were, took it,
took over the accountabilities,incrementally, slowly, from the
scrum master and your teamworking in data, compare how you
thought the job was then to whatyou think of it now, what did
you initially think you weregetting into?
jim sparks (04:11):
It's completely different. I will say that from
then to now. And for me, it wentfrom a kind of an arc where I
had these expectations of whatit would be, you know, the
servant leadership aspect of it,working in the shadows. I always
call I've called it that foryears, working in the shadows.
You know, the goal is always ofa good scrum master, at least it
(04:32):
was when I first started, was tofire yourself to really get your
team to the point that they'recompletely self organized and
they can really run without youthere, and that's what I thought
it was. This is great, because Iget to help them achieve their
version of success. And, youknow, maybe slink into the
corner and go off and do thatwith another team. And then
(04:54):
through the course of myjourney, I found out there's,
you know, a lot more involved toit than just, you know, kind of
slinking away into a corner and.
And servant leadership. And as Istarted to grow and learn, learn
about delivery, and learn abouthow you can impact delivery of a
product from you know, yourposition as a scrum master was a
lot of fun, and now kind ofgoing on the other end of it,
(05:16):
it's, I feel as if it's shiftingmore focus towards the delivery
aspect of it as it should, youknow, because you're supporting
a team that ultimately they'rethere to deliver. So if you can
enable that and enable theirsuccess and that delivery of
that product, yes, you can stillbe a great servant leader. Yes,
you can still, you know, be theperson that is everyone looks
(05:40):
to, and everyone relies on andcounts on to, to help them. But
you also have to be able tofocus on, how do I deliver this
product from my organization,which I think back then, it
wasn't quite as focused on that,the accountability of Scrum
Master itself as it is now. So Iactually love the shift in the
(06:00):
way it's going.
Dave West (06:03):
That's interesting, because obviously the scrum
guide, we in the 2020, releaseof the scrum guide. Who made the
changes? Well, Ken and Jeff madethe changes to make the scrum
master, the whole scrum teamaccountable for delivering
value. And really tighten thatup a little bit to make it a lot
(06:24):
clearer that your focus isultimately where everybody's
focus is to deliver value, andhow you do it is focusing on the
accountability, servantleadership, serving the team,
serving the organization,serving the product owner,
obviously, and, and helpingthem, them be successful. So you
must have been a little bitannoyed, Jim, when they took the
(06:46):
word, the phrase, servantleadership out of the scrum
guide in 2020. Must have, youknow, as you are natural, but,
but, but don't worry, it's stillkind of conceptually there. We
just took that, phrase out tosort of tone down the servant
element and emphasize theleadership element.
jim sparks (07:07):
And I think that was good actually, because I
honestly, I believe that anygood, great leader is going to
have some aspect of that servantleadership as part of their
leadership tool belt, so tospeak. So the wording to me
wasn't, it really didn't phaseme a bit, because as a leader,
(07:28):
that's just who I am. I am aservant leader, you know? So
that I can that's just kind ofmy my personality when it comes
to that. So I think any goodleader should have some aspect
of
Dave West (07:38):
that, yeah, yeah. And the reason the motivation was to
reduce the emphasis on sort oflike being a team, a person
basically doing getting thecoffees in, making sure that all
the things, because those thingsare important, I actually
sitting here at my desk, I wouldlove somebody to go and get me a
cup of coffee. At the moment,where's my scrum master? Sorry.
(08:01):
Anyway, the thing is that thatisn't the focus as what you
described. Is exactly right,Jim. The emphasis is to deliver
an amazing product and create anenvironment for your team to do
that, and that is the importantstuff. And you know, if you go
and get your own coffee, youknow, which, which is a little
bit disappointed this and thisafternoon for me, but that's
(08:22):
cool. All right. So, so you sortof fell into scrum master. It
sort of fitted your your skills,your style, your you know, what
value you want to bring to theworld. As it were, you said you
worked, you've been working indata, and you worked in a lot of
different kinds oforganizations. Can you take me
through some of those for amoment?
jim sparks (08:45):
So when I started, I was, I was a full time employee
with a consultancy agency, but85% of the work we did was for
the US government. So we had alot of government experience. A
lot of working in thatenvironment. Everyone knows that
sometimes there can be a littlemore red tape involved. It can
be a little more, yeah, a littlemore constricting about how you
(09:06):
do. So I think that, for me, wasa great experience to learn my
role, to learn theaccountability of a scrum
master, to learn how to be agreat scrum master, because you
had a lot of obstacles. You hada lot of impediments that are
not going to be easy to tackle,you know, and so working with
that group and working with thatteam to deliver that was
(09:27):
awesome, moving from there intolike web application and develop
developing mobile apps, workingwith those teams, working With a
medical devices industry, wewere doing, going to IoT,
Internet of Things. Everything'sgoing to be connected. And we
had, at the time, we were kindof given almost free rein. We
(09:51):
had, you know, oversight. We hadour directors were, you know,
we're in there, but we weregiven the run of, here is, you.
Of this thing that here's thisScrum, go take this and create
these products. And the teamsare awesome. They they really
thrived in that environment. SoI got to see that I've been
(10:12):
through some HR benefits,compensation teams, been through
a finances team. It was, it wasfunny there went in as a new
scrum master, and the firstthing the the team manager or
the development manager, said tome wasn't, hi, hello. How are
you? As we don't do Scrum aroundhere, first thing he
Unknown (10:34):
said, you're like, welcome to the team.
jim sparks (10:38):
So my response being who I am. Like, awesome. Why?
Because that's my typicalresponse. I'm a five year old,
so I'll be like, Hey, why? Well,tell me why. Tell me more. Tell
me why. And so that was, thatwas an adventure, currently
working in a cyber securityspace right now. So that's fun
for me. It's interesting to seehow we can use, you know, agile,
(11:04):
you know, in Scrum, within acyber environment, because a lot
of people don't think you can'tdo Scrum and cyber, well, you
can, you know, it's challenging,but it can be done. So that's
for me, it's a lot of fun rightnow. That's what my biggest
challenge right now is, makingsure they get it.
Dave West (11:19):
So take you back to that. You went into the
organization and they said, wedon't do Scrum. Welcome to the
team. So you said, why? You thenunpacked what he meant by not
doing Scrum. And then what didyou do next? Did you just sort
of okay? So what are you tryingto do? What's the outcomes
you're achieving? What was, whatwas your natural response to
(11:42):
that jam?
jim sparks (11:44):
I wanted to sit down and talk to the this, the
manager who obviously everyonelooked up to, and the
organization was supportive ofagility and supportive of Scrum.
It's just this pocket this teamwas like, ah, we don't do Scrum.
And so I wanted to kind ofunderstand what their concerns
were and why. You know, if theorganization believes in Scrum,
(12:07):
the organization is supportiveof, you know, Scrum, why is this
pocket of it, not a fan of it?
Why are they not implementingit, either correctly or at all?
So talk to him for a little bit.
And they had experienced, youknow, the, I guess you could
say, you know, the scrum masterthat comes in and says, You have
(12:29):
to scrum buy the book everysingle letter, and not giving
any flexibility for the team toreally grow into it and learn
how to do it. Well, it was a,you know, a very P's and Q's,
you know, your your time boxesare on the dot, and that it just
they took it a little too far.
So they had experienced some ofthat, and it didn't work for
(12:51):
them. And maybe that's why therewasn't a scrum master on that
team at the time, I don't know.
But so we started to develop therelationship where, you know, a
very collaborative relationshipjust explaining the value, you
know, what you can see, andstart to fine tune some of the
anti patterns that were thereand get them to where they were
(13:12):
at least comfortable saying,Yeah, we do Scrum,
Dave West (13:15):
yeah. I think that sometimes some of those, some of
those, some of those people canactually ultimately become the
biggest advocates. There was a Iwas working with CRISPR
therapeutics, and the personthat was doing Scrum the scrum
master was awful, is awful,awfully. Bought in. He was
(13:36):
really positive. And then he gotmoved into something else, and
he brought this other guy whowas PhD, but was also a an ex
fireman, and he was so cynical,and it was just hilarious. And
now we meet for dinner once aquarter. He's like the biggest
advocate. He's gone into adifferent role in in a different
(13:59):
organization, but he brings allof those practices. He's become
the biggest advocate. So Sosometimes those situations
aren't necessarily the worst.
Did you get them? Did you, inthe end, get them doing at least
something that looked a littlebit about Scrum? Yes,
jim sparks (14:14):
they, for me, the biggest win was when we went
into our daily scrum, peoplewere actually communicating and
collaborating, and they wereusing it for what it was
intended for. And they wereactually turning their cameras
on. So that for me, I went inand I faced, you know, when you
go into a room, a virtual room,and you face a wall of boxes
(14:37):
with just a little bubble ofeach person in there versus up,
and they were actuallycommunicating and talking, and
so that was a win. That washuge. But yes, they they were
down that they were headed downthat path. That's
Dave West (14:49):
awesome, that's, that's, that's, that's good. You
never know. One day one of themmight be on a call like this.
Um, alright, so you've had avaried sort of over this seven
and a half. Half years of avaried set of experiences around
Scrum. What would you say thebiggest challenge you've faced
as a scrum master? Was it the wedon't do no damn Scrum? Or was
(15:14):
it the that was me trying to doan American accent? I do
apologize for you and ourlisteners. That was awful. I've
lived here 2324 years, and Istill can't do it. That's almost
25 years anyway, so sorry aboutthat. We aren't doing any Scrum.
Or is it something, you know,something else. Tell me a little
bit about some of the challengesthat you've you've faced.
jim sparks (15:38):
I think for me, one of the biggest challenges is
that leading without authority.
And one of the kind of the theway, least the way I've noticed
the industry leading a littlebit is, you know, having a scrum
master, or having a manager ofsome sort take on the
accountability of a scrummaster, because they have some
authority, whether I don't knowthat I'm 100% on board with that
(16:02):
yet or not, I'm still kind of,you know, the jury's still out.
But I think that the leadingwithout authority tends to be
the biggest challenge for me,because you go into an
organization or a team wherethey're holding on to the old
anti patterns that have causedthem, you know, heartburn, and
you don't have the authority tocome in and just say, Okay,
(16:23):
we're going to stop all of thatcraziness right now, and we're
going to try something likethis. So I would do that like,
hey, let's try something new.
But I don't have the authorityto say we're done with that. So
you have to, you have to be ableto experience the team, where
they are. You have to get inthere and meet them, collaborate
(16:44):
with them, build that rapport sothat they want to follow you,
follow you. Create that value,create that vision of why you're
headed this direction, to reallypull them along with you,
whereas if you are a manager oryou're trying to push them, you
know. So I think that's been thebiggest challenge for me, is to
kind of pull them with me,versus having authority to push
(17:05):
them a direction.
Dave West (17:07):
Yeah. I mean, I I'm 100% I believe that Scrum
Masters ultimately have to havethe authority. And the reason
why is exactly the story thatyou described. You know, the the
most powerful situations are,you know, change. Situations
I've ever encountered are oneswhen the person, you know, the
boss, says, Okay, we're notgoing to do that anymore, then
(17:29):
we're going to do this. And ifit doesn't work, we're going to
learn from it, but we're goingto try. And those situations are
very hard to do when you haveto. And I know you can persuade
everybody, and you can influenceand all this stuff, but, but,
but impediments. And it doesn'thave to be as big as that. It
could be just one smallimpediment in when you when the
(17:52):
when the team themselves havenot got the ability to remove an
impediment and and it's obviousthat needs to be removed, then
it and you not having thatauthority is incredibly
disappointing and reallyillustrates what the
organization thinks of Scrum.
Yeah, they trust Scrum, but onlyto some extent. They've still
got the original, you know,hierarchical managers in place.
(18:14):
So I'm a big fan of havingauthority. I don't believe it
reduces transparency. I mean,it's a risk, but I think it's a
risk that can be easily managed.
And I ultimately think that italso, I hate to say it, but it
allows you to get paidappropriately. It allows, you
(18:36):
know, all of those, all of thosethings happen as well. Big fan
of that, and it is verychallenging to over overcome.
So, all right, so we're, we'removing towards the end. We try
to keep these brief. And Jim, Icould, I could ask you questions
all all day. I'm sure you've gotlots of insights, but, but, all
(18:58):
right, so I'm a scrum masterlistening to this, you know, and
maybe I'm new to the role. Whatadvice would you give? Give me
jim sparks (19:13):
the two pieces of advice. I think that there are
things that have helped me themost along my career so far is
one never stop learning whetheryou read, whether you're
watching a video, whether you'relistening to a podcast, whether
you're taking a course, whateverit is. Always have that
(19:33):
relentless desire to learn andget better and perfect your
craft and realize that you'renever done. Don't ever get to
the I'm there. I've made itpoint, because you've never made
it, and you know you never willmake it. So keep that in mind.
Learn as you go, try to getbetter. And the other piece I
would offer is build yournetwork. And this is somewhat
(19:57):
related to what we just talkedabout. And while you don't. Have
the authority to go out thereand maybe put your foot in the
ground and say, This is how itis. If you build your network,
and you've built that rapport,and you have people that trust
you, that have that authority,and can put that flag in the
ground and say, this is the way,and you can have some, some
(20:20):
element of influence with themthat helps you along your
journey. So don't be afraid togo external to your team, go
outside of your team and buildthat network. That is how you're
really going to be able tosupport your teams and enable
them to run.
Dave West (20:35):
Oh, wow, that's bizarre that you pick those two
because they're exactly the two.
I would always say, I think thatthe learning aspect is really
interesting and continuous. Ipersonally, but I make sure my
lunch hours are always blockedout. And yes, I do eat, but I
don't eat for the whole hour.
(20:56):
I'm not I'm not having a fivecourse meal and wine, if only
I'm not in France or Europe.
Unfortunately, I wish anyway,but I have my five course meal.
No, I just have my sandwich orwhatever, and and then I spend
the other time learning. And Ihave a backlog. I know it's very
geeky. Of things that havetickled my fancy, you know, that
(21:17):
I've seen but not had time for,like, oh, I there's this article
on, you know, flow systems, orflow networks, or whatever I'm
interested in that. Oh, I needto really spend some more time
in Cynefin and Dave snowden'swork, or or whatever it is. And
I have this big list that I addto continuously. It's an
Evernote. And then I justliterally, oh, I can see your
(21:38):
list on the wall. That's andthen so I pick every, every
lunch, I read something, or Ilisten to something or or
whatever, to actually do that.
So I really, really appreciatethat. And then the network thing
is, I mean, that's the reasonwhy Ken scruble was my mentor,
(21:58):
right? And for 20 years, we metfor, you know, not every month,
but we met sometimes veryfrequently and sometimes less
frequent. And he helped me, youknow, build an engineering
organization at task top. Hehelped me, you know, Forrester
Research, when I was researchingthis stuff, he was and then it
(22:19):
turns out that he wanted to hireme. But so networks are
invaluable throughout so and asa scrum master, in particularly
in your enablement role, I thinkit's even more crucial. So great
advice. Great advice there, Jim,so thank you for spending the
time today. I really, really doappreciate, I think our
(22:42):
listeners do as as well. Ifthere's any last words to share,
any last words of our listeners,
jim sparks (22:50):
go out there and just do it. Don't just get off
your high horse as a scrummaster and just, you know, be
open to learn and just have fundoing it. That's the biggest
thing. Go have fun doing this.
Dave West (23:01):
Oh, that is such good. What you said about that
bad experience with Scrum.
There's so many that that teamhad, and then you had to sort of
slowly bring them back. The badexperiences are often created by
arrogance and hubris, right? Wethink we know it all because,
and the reality is, reallydon't, and nobody does that.
(23:24):
That is the reality. There's,you know, there's no should sing
as a truth, but its pursuit ishonorable, you know. And I think
that that is, oh, my God,that's, that's perhaps the third
bit of advice, don't, don't,don't be arrogant, I guess
jim sparks (23:42):
Absolutely. Yeah, get off your high horse and
realize, no matter how much youthink you know, you don't know
it all. And you need to bewilling to take that step back.
Definitely.
Dave West (23:53):
I think that's really, really good advice.
Well, thanks, thanks, Jim. No, Iappreciate you. This has been
fun. This certainly has sotoday, I was very lucky to be
speaking with Jim sparks fromDayton, Ohio, a scrum master for
some seven and a half years,worked all over the place,
helping teams become more andmore effective. And thank you
(24:18):
for listening to today'spodcast, scrum.org, community
podcast. If you liked what youheard, subscribe, share of your
friends. And of course, comeback and listen to more. Today,
we were hearing all about Scrum,the accountability of Scrum
Master. But I'm lucky enough tohave a variety of guests talking
(24:38):
about everything in the area ofprofessional Scrum Product
thinking and of course, agile,thanks, everybody. Scrummar,
you.
Music.
(00:00):
Welcome to the scrum.orgcommunity podcast, a podcast
(00:04):
from the home of Scrum. In thispodcast, we feature professional
scrum trainers and other scrumpractitioners sharing their
stories and experiences to helplearn from the experience of
others. We hope you enjoy thisepisode. Hello
Dave West (00:20):
and welcome to the scrum.org community podcast. I'm
your host, Dave. We're CEOhere@scrum.org today's podcast
is in the scrum master Real Talkseries. It's a special series
where we want to hear from scrummaster sharing personal stories,
whether it's overcomingobstacles, creating solutions,
or critical lessons they'velearned during their during
(00:42):
their journey, how they helpedand foster agility in their
teams they've worked with andthe organizations today, we're
incredibly lucky to have Jimsparks from Dayton, Ohio in the
United States of America.
Welcome to the podcast,
jim sparks (01:00):
Jim. Thank you very much. It's actually a pleasure
to be here. Great. Well,
Dave West (01:06):
let's you should hold that judgment until the end,
Jim, but the being optimistic,right? First job of every scrum
master, be an optimist. I think.
Great. So All right, let's startat the very beginning. How did
you become? How do you think youbecome a scrum master? Well,
jim sparks (01:28):
it was actually very accidental. For a little while I
was, you know, I would callmyself an accidental Agilist,
because I was a data guy workingin Teradata SQL Server, that
type of thing. And the team Iwas starting to work with, the
scrum master was very busy atthe time. I didn't know any
(01:48):
better, but I come to find out,he was doing a lot of things
that at the time you didn'ttypically expect a scrum master
to do. So I just startedvolunteering. Hey, I can help
you with that. Let me help youwith that. How about I help you
with that? And after about fourto six weeks, he just kind of
checked that and let me go. Hejust kind of said, Here, you do
it. And he provided oversightand training and helped me, you
(02:09):
know, learn as we were going,but he let me take the reins of
that team and that work on thatproduct. So it was pretty
awesome. At that point, Istarted to learn as much as I
could. I started to absorbknowledge, read books, reading,
you know, the blog articles,watching videos, a lot of
(02:30):
scrum.org, trainers. Actually, Iwas trying to learn from to get
better at it, because I reallyfell in love with what I was was
doing. And the biggest reason Ireally resonated with me was the
servant leadership aspect of it.
I had always that was kind of mypersonality. It's who I was,
it's it's what I am in my DNAis, you know, a servant leader
(02:51):
at heart. And I'd never reallyheard of the term servant leader
until I started down the scrummaster path, and then I was
like, whoa. Someone wants to payme to do what I already do
anyway. So for me, it was a nobrainer at the time, so I jumped
into it with full force, and,you know, kind of led me to
here. So I've been through sevenand a half ish years doing this,
(03:14):
and I love everything about it.
I've learned, differentindustries, different types of
work, been in benefits andcompensation, HR, cyber
security, medical deviceindustry, a lot of different
industries, finances. And so youget to see a little bit of
(03:36):
differences in how people applyScrum and agility in general,
based on where they work. Soit's kind of fun. It's been a
lot of fun for me. It's
Dave West (03:46):
been a fun journey.
So, so when you first got intothe job, as it were, took it,
took over the accountabilities,incrementally, slowly, from the
scrum master and your teamworking in data, compare how you
thought the job was then to whatyou think of it now, what did
you initially think you weregetting into?
jim sparks (04:11):
It's completely different. I will say that from
then to now. And for me, it wentfrom a kind of an arc where I
had these expectations of whatit would be, you know, the
servant leadership aspect of it,working in the shadows. I always
call I've called it that foryears, working in the shadows.
You know, the goal is always ofa good scrum master, at least it
(04:32):
was when I first started, was tofire yourself to really get your
team to the point that they'recompletely self organized and
they can really run without youthere, and that's what I thought
it was. This is great, because Iget to help them achieve their
version of success. And, youknow, maybe slink into the
corner and go off and do thatwith another team. And then
(04:54):
through the course of myjourney, I found out there's,
you know, a lot more involved toit than just, you know, kind of
slinking away into a corner and.
And servant leadership. And as Istarted to grow and learn, learn
about delivery, and learn abouthow you can impact delivery of a
product from you know, yourposition as a scrum master was a
lot of fun, and now kind ofgoing on the other end of it,
(05:16):
it's, I feel as if it's shiftingmore focus towards the delivery
aspect of it as it should, youknow, because you're supporting
a team that ultimately they'rethere to deliver. So if you can
enable that and enable theirsuccess and that delivery of
that product, yes, you can stillbe a great servant leader. Yes,
you can still, you know, be theperson that is everyone looks
(05:40):
to, and everyone relies on andcounts on to, to help them. But
you also have to be able tofocus on, how do I deliver this
product from my organization,which I think back then, it
wasn't quite as focused on that,the accountability of Scrum
Master itself as it is now. So Iactually love the shift in the
(06:00):
way it's going.
Dave West (06:03):
That's interesting, because obviously the scrum
guide, we in the 2020, releaseof the scrum guide. Who made the
changes? Well, Ken and Jeff madethe changes to make the scrum
master, the whole scrum teamaccountable for delivering
value. And really tighten thatup a little bit to make it a lot
(06:24):
clearer that your focus isultimately where everybody's
focus is to deliver value, andhow you do it is focusing on the
accountability, servantleadership, serving the team,
serving the organization,serving the product owner,
obviously, and, and helpingthem, them be successful. So you
must have been a little bitannoyed, Jim, when they took the
(06:46):
word, the phrase, servantleadership out of the scrum
guide in 2020. Must have, youknow, as you are natural, but,
but, but don't worry, it's stillkind of conceptually there. We
just took that, phrase out tosort of tone down the servant
element and emphasize theleadership element.
jim sparks (07:07):
And I think that was good actually, because I
honestly, I believe that anygood, great leader is going to
have some aspect of that servantleadership as part of their
leadership tool belt, so tospeak. So the wording to me
wasn't, it really didn't phaseme a bit, because as a leader,
(07:28):
that's just who I am. I am aservant leader, you know? So
that I can that's just kind ofmy my personality when it comes
to that. So I think any goodleader should have some aspect
of
Dave West (07:38):
that, yeah, yeah. And the reason the motivation was to
reduce the emphasis on sort oflike being a team, a person
basically doing getting thecoffees in, making sure that all
the things, because those thingsare important, I actually
sitting here at my desk, I wouldlove somebody to go and get me a
cup of coffee. At the moment,where's my scrum master? Sorry.
(08:01):
Anyway, the thing is that thatisn't the focus as what you
described. Is exactly right,Jim. The emphasis is to deliver
an amazing product and create anenvironment for your team to do
that, and that is the importantstuff. And you know, if you go
and get your own coffee, youknow, which, which is a little
bit disappointed this and thisafternoon for me, but that's
(08:22):
cool. All right. So, so you sortof fell into scrum master. It
sort of fitted your your skills,your style, your you know, what
value you want to bring to theworld. As it were, you said you
worked, you've been working indata, and you worked in a lot of
different kinds oforganizations. Can you take me
through some of those for amoment?
jim sparks (08:45):
So when I started, I was, I was a full time employee
with a consultancy agency, but85% of the work we did was for
the US government. So we had alot of government experience. A
lot of working in thatenvironment. Everyone knows that
sometimes there can be a littlemore red tape involved. It can
be a little more, yeah, a littlemore constricting about how you
(09:06):
do. So I think that, for me, wasa great experience to learn my
role, to learn theaccountability of a scrum
master, to learn how to be agreat scrum master, because you
had a lot of obstacles. You hada lot of impediments that are
not going to be easy to tackle,you know, and so working with
that group and working with thatteam to deliver that was
(09:27):
awesome, moving from there intolike web application and develop
developing mobile apps, workingwith those teams, working With a
medical devices industry, wewere doing, going to IoT,
Internet of Things. Everything'sgoing to be connected. And we
had, at the time, we were kindof given almost free rein. We
(09:51):
had, you know, oversight. We hadour directors were, you know,
we're in there, but we weregiven the run of, here is, you.
Of this thing that here's thisScrum, go take this and create
these products. And the teamsare awesome. They they really
thrived in that environment. SoI got to see that I've been
(10:12):
through some HR benefits,compensation teams, been through
a finances team. It was, it wasfunny there went in as a new
scrum master, and the firstthing the the team manager or
the development manager, said tome wasn't, hi, hello. How are
you? As we don't do Scrum aroundhere, first thing he
Unknown (10:34):
said, you're like, welcome to the team.
jim sparks (10:38):
So my response being who I am. Like, awesome. Why?
Because that's my typicalresponse. I'm a five year old,
so I'll be like, Hey, why? Well,tell me why. Tell me more. Tell
me why. And so that was, thatwas an adventure, currently
working in a cyber securityspace right now. So that's fun
for me. It's interesting to seehow we can use, you know, agile,
(11:04):
you know, in Scrum, within acyber environment, because a lot
of people don't think you can'tdo Scrum and cyber, well, you
can, you know, it's challenging,but it can be done. So that's
for me, it's a lot of fun rightnow. That's what my biggest
challenge right now is, makingsure they get it.
Dave West (11:19):
So take you back to that. You went into the
organization and they said, wedon't do Scrum. Welcome to the
team. So you said, why? You thenunpacked what he meant by not
doing Scrum. And then what didyou do next? Did you just sort
of okay? So what are you tryingto do? What's the outcomes
you're achieving? What was, whatwas your natural response to
(11:42):
that jam?
jim sparks (11:44):
I wanted to sit down and talk to the this, the
manager who obviously everyonelooked up to, and the
organization was supportive ofagility and supportive of Scrum.
It's just this pocket this teamwas like, ah, we don't do Scrum.
And so I wanted to kind ofunderstand what their concerns
were and why. You know, if theorganization believes in Scrum,
(12:07):
the organization is supportiveof, you know, Scrum, why is this
pocket of it, not a fan of it?
Why are they not implementingit, either correctly or at all?
So talk to him for a little bit.
And they had experienced, youknow, the, I guess you could
say, you know, the scrum masterthat comes in and says, You have
(12:29):
to scrum buy the book everysingle letter, and not giving
any flexibility for the team toreally grow into it and learn
how to do it. Well, it was a,you know, a very P's and Q's,
you know, your your time boxesare on the dot, and that it just
they took it a little too far.
So they had experienced some ofthat, and it didn't work for
(12:51):
them. And maybe that's why therewasn't a scrum master on that
team at the time, I don't know.
But so we started to develop therelationship where, you know, a
very collaborative relationshipjust explaining the value, you
know, what you can see, andstart to fine tune some of the
anti patterns that were thereand get them to where they were
(13:12):
at least comfortable saying,Yeah, we do Scrum,
Dave West (13:15):
yeah. I think that sometimes some of those, some of
those, some of those people canactually ultimately become the
biggest advocates. There was a Iwas working with CRISPR
therapeutics, and the personthat was doing Scrum the scrum
master was awful, is awful,awfully. Bought in. He was
(13:36):
really positive. And then he gotmoved into something else, and
he brought this other guy whowas PhD, but was also a an ex
fireman, and he was so cynical,and it was just hilarious. And
now we meet for dinner once aquarter. He's like the biggest
advocate. He's gone into adifferent role in in a different
(13:59):
organization, but he brings allof those practices. He's become
the biggest advocate. So Sosometimes those situations
aren't necessarily the worst.
Did you get them? Did you, inthe end, get them doing at least
something that looked a littlebit about Scrum? Yes,
jim sparks (14:14):
they, for me, the biggest win was when we went
into our daily scrum, peoplewere actually communicating and
collaborating, and they wereusing it for what it was
intended for. And they wereactually turning their cameras
on. So that for me, I went inand I faced, you know, when you
go into a room, a virtual room,and you face a wall of boxes
(14:37):
with just a little bubble ofeach person in there versus up,
and they were actuallycommunicating and talking, and
so that was a win. That washuge. But yes, they they were
down that they were headed downthat path. That's
Dave West (14:49):
awesome, that's, that's, that's, that's good. You
never know. One day one of themmight be on a call like this.
Um, alright, so you've had avaried sort of over this seven
and a half. Half years of avaried set of experiences around
Scrum. What would you say thebiggest challenge you've faced
as a scrum master? Was it the wedon't do no damn Scrum? Or was
(15:14):
it the that was me trying to doan American accent? I do
apologize for you and ourlisteners. That was awful. I've
lived here 2324 years, and Istill can't do it. That's almost
25 years anyway, so sorry aboutthat. We aren't doing any Scrum.
Or is it something, you know,something else. Tell me a little
bit about some of the challengesthat you've you've faced.
jim sparks (15:38):
I think for me, one of the biggest challenges is
that leading without authority.
And one of the kind of the theway, least the way I've noticed
the industry leading a littlebit is, you know, having a scrum
master, or having a manager ofsome sort take on the
accountability of a scrummaster, because they have some
authority, whether I don't knowthat I'm 100% on board with that
(16:02):
yet or not, I'm still kind of,you know, the jury's still out.
But I think that the leadingwithout authority tends to be
the biggest challenge for me,because you go into an
organization or a team wherethey're holding on to the old
anti patterns that have causedthem, you know, heartburn, and
you don't have the authority tocome in and just say, Okay,
(16:23):
we're going to stop all of thatcraziness right now, and we're
going to try something likethis. So I would do that like,
hey, let's try something new.
But I don't have the authorityto say we're done with that. So
you have to, you have to be ableto experience the team, where
they are. You have to get inthere and meet them, collaborate
(16:44):
with them, build that rapport sothat they want to follow you,
follow you. Create that value,create that vision of why you're
headed this direction, to reallypull them along with you,
whereas if you are a manager oryou're trying to push them, you
know. So I think that's been thebiggest challenge for me, is to
kind of pull them with me,versus having authority to push
(17:05):
them a direction.
Dave West (17:07):
Yeah. I mean, I I'm 100% I believe that Scrum
Masters ultimately have to havethe authority. And the reason
why is exactly the story thatyou described. You know, the the
most powerful situations are,you know, change. Situations
I've ever encountered are oneswhen the person, you know, the
boss, says, Okay, we're notgoing to do that anymore, then
(17:29):
we're going to do this. And ifit doesn't work, we're going to
learn from it, but we're goingto try. And those situations are
very hard to do when you haveto. And I know you can persuade
everybody, and you can influenceand all this stuff, but, but,
but impediments. And it doesn'thave to be as big as that. It
could be just one smallimpediment in when you when the
(17:52):
when the team themselves havenot got the ability to remove an
impediment and and it's obviousthat needs to be removed, then
it and you not having thatauthority is incredibly
disappointing and reallyillustrates what the
organization thinks of Scrum.
Yeah, they trust Scrum, but onlyto some extent. They've still
got the original, you know,hierarchical managers in place.
(18:14):
So I'm a big fan of havingauthority. I don't believe it
reduces transparency. I mean,it's a risk, but I think it's a
risk that can be easily managed.
And I ultimately think that italso, I hate to say it, but it
allows you to get paidappropriately. It allows, you
(18:36):
know, all of those, all of thosethings happen as well. Big fan
of that, and it is verychallenging to over overcome.
So, all right, so we're, we'removing towards the end. We try
to keep these brief. And Jim, Icould, I could ask you questions
all all day. I'm sure you've gotlots of insights, but, but, all
(18:58):
right, so I'm a scrum masterlistening to this, you know, and
maybe I'm new to the role. Whatadvice would you give? Give me
jim sparks (19:13):
the two pieces of advice. I think that there are
things that have helped me themost along my career so far is
one never stop learning whetheryou read, whether you're
watching a video, whether you'relistening to a podcast, whether
you're taking a course, whateverit is. Always have that
(19:33):
relentless desire to learn andget better and perfect your
craft and realize that you'renever done. Don't ever get to
the I'm there. I've made itpoint, because you've never made
it, and you know you never willmake it. So keep that in mind.
Learn as you go, try to getbetter. And the other piece I
would offer is build yournetwork. And this is somewhat
(19:57):
related to what we just talkedabout. And while you don't. Have
the authority to go out thereand maybe put your foot in the
ground and say, This is how itis. If you build your network,
and you've built that rapport,and you have people that trust
you, that have that authority,and can put that flag in the
ground and say, this is the way,and you can have some, some
(20:20):
element of influence with themthat helps you along your
journey. So don't be afraid togo external to your team, go
outside of your team and buildthat network. That is how you're
really going to be able tosupport your teams and enable
them to run.
Dave West (20:35):
Oh, wow, that's bizarre that you pick those two
because they're exactly the two.
I would always say, I think thatthe learning aspect is really
interesting and continuous. Ipersonally, but I make sure my
lunch hours are always blockedout. And yes, I do eat, but I
don't eat for the whole hour.
(20:56):
I'm not I'm not having a fivecourse meal and wine, if only
I'm not in France or Europe.
Unfortunately, I wish anyway,but I have my five course meal.
No, I just have my sandwich orwhatever, and and then I spend
the other time learning. And Ihave a backlog. I know it's very
geeky. Of things that havetickled my fancy, you know, that
(21:17):
I've seen but not had time for,like, oh, I there's this article
on, you know, flow systems, orflow networks, or whatever I'm
interested in that. Oh, I needto really spend some more time
in Cynefin and Dave snowden'swork, or or whatever it is. And
I have this big list that I addto continuously. It's an
Evernote. And then I justliterally, oh, I can see your
(21:38):
list on the wall. That's andthen so I pick every, every
lunch, I read something, or Ilisten to something or or
whatever, to actually do that.
So I really, really appreciatethat. And then the network thing
is, I mean, that's the reasonwhy Ken scruble was my mentor,
(21:58):
right? And for 20 years, we metfor, you know, not every month,
but we met sometimes veryfrequently and sometimes less
frequent. And he helped me, youknow, build an engineering
organization at task top. Hehelped me, you know, Forrester
Research, when I was researchingthis stuff, he was and then it
(22:19):
turns out that he wanted to hireme. But so networks are
invaluable throughout so and asa scrum master, in particularly
in your enablement role, I thinkit's even more crucial. So great
advice. Great advice there, Jim,so thank you for spending the
time today. I really, really doappreciate, I think our
(22:42):
listeners do as as well. Ifthere's any last words to share,
any last words of our listeners,
jim sparks (22:50):
go out there and just do it. Don't just get off
your high horse as a scrummaster and just, you know, be
open to learn and just have fundoing it. That's the biggest
thing. Go have fun doing this.
Dave West (23:01):
Oh, that is such good. What you said about that
bad experience with Scrum.
There's so many that that teamhad, and then you had to sort of
slowly bring them back. The badexperiences are often created by
arrogance and hubris, right? Wethink we know it all because,
and the reality is, reallydon't, and nobody does that.
(23:24):
That is the reality. There's,you know, there's no should sing
as a truth, but its pursuit ishonorable, you know. And I think
that that is, oh, my God,that's, that's perhaps the third
bit of advice, don't, don't,don't be arrogant, I guess
jim sparks (23:42):
Absolutely. Yeah, get off your high horse and
realize, no matter how much youthink you know, you don't know
it all. And you need to bewilling to take that step back.
Definitely.
Dave West (23:53):
I think that's really, really good advice.
Well, thanks, thanks, Jim. No, Iappreciate you. This has been
fun. This certainly has sotoday, I was very lucky to be
speaking with Jim sparks fromDayton, Ohio, a scrum master for
some seven and a half years,worked all over the place,
helping teams become more andmore effective. And thank you
(24:18):
for listening to today'spodcast, scrum.org, community
podcast. If you liked what youheard, subscribe, share of your
friends. And of course, comeback and listen to more. Today,
we were hearing all about Scrum,the accountability of Scrum
Master. But I'm lucky enough tohave a variety of guests talking
(24:38):
about everything in the area ofprofessional Scrum Product
thinking and of course, agile,thanks, everybody. Scrummar,
you.
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