April 24, 2024 • 33 mins
Unlock the secrets to becoming an exceptional Scrum Master with Kat Buckwalter, whose expertise spans neuropsychiatric research to business analysis. This episode isn't just about clarifying what a Scrum Master does; it's about catapulting them from underrated facilitators to the MVPs of the Agile world. Kat and I, Mark Metze, dissect the multifaceted skill set—from CEO-level strategic thinking to the infectious energy of a cheerleader—that Scrum Masters must harness to advocate for their worth in the complex corporate playing field.
Venture beyond the backlog and sprints as we dissect the delicate alchemy of product savvy and business acumen crucial for any Scrum Master. Drawing wisdom from Ram Charan and Daniel Kahneman, we navigate the intersections of customer retention, market analysis, and team dynamics. Our conversation is a treasure trove of strategies for enhancing communication, resolving conflict, and steering teams toward success, armed with tools like the SCARF model and the Savvy Method from "Conversation Transformation." These insights are not just theoretical—we're talking real-life, actionable tactics that you can apply instantly.
The climax of our journey with Kat traverses the art of winning over the C-suite, where every second counts, and every dashboard tells a story. Learn to craft compelling narratives through data visualization and how to be concise yet impactful in your dialogue with executives. As a Scrum Master, you're not just the Agile aficionado; you're the coach, the data wizard, the process mapper. And as we wrap up, remember that this deep dive into the Agile ethos is just the beginning. Join us on LinkedIn, share the wealth of knowledge from our conversation, and stay tuned as we continue to unravel the Agile enigma, one episode at a time.
Connect with Kat on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katbuckwalter/
When in Philadelphia, visit The Victor Cafe for great food and music:
https://victorcafe.com/
DORA metrics:
https://www.atlassian.com/devops/frameworks/dora-metrics
Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations:
https://www.amazon.com/Accelerate-Software-Performing-Technology-Organizations/dp/1942788339
What the CEO wants you to know:
https://ram-charan.com/books/what-the-ceo-wants-you-to-know/
Thinking Fast and Slow:
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/11468377
Your Brain at Work:
https://www.amazon.com/Your-Brain-Work-Strategies-Distraction/dp/0061771295
SAVI at Work (Found in the book "Conversation Transformation"):
https://www.conversationtransformation.com/about-the-authors/savi/
Harvard Business Review podcasts:
https://hbr.org/podcasts
The Real Reason People Won’t Change Article:
https://hbr.org/2001/11/the-real-reason-people-wont-change
Join the Alliance using the link below:
Follow us on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-agile-within
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Agile Within.
I am your host, mark Metz.
My mission for this podcast isto provide Agile insights into
human values and behaviorsthrough genuine connections.
My guests and I will sharereal-life stories from our Agile
journeys, triumphs, blundersand everything in between, as
(00:29):
well as the lessons that we havelearned.
So get pumped, get rocking.
The Agile Within starts now.
Well, welcome back everybody tothe Agile Within.
This is your host, mark Metz.
Today.
I want to welcome our guest,kat Buchwalter Kat.
Welcome to the Agile Within.
This is your host, mark Metz.
Today.
I want to welcome our guest,kat Buckwalter.
Kat.
Welcome to the Agile Within.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Thanks for having me, Mark.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, great to have you.
If I'm traveling to Philly fora day, Kat, what's one thing
that I have to do?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Okay.
So there is a place I always goto food when I talk about
Philly.
We do have a great art scene,we have a great music scene, but
the food is just fantastic.
There's a place called theVictor Cafe.
It's on Dickinson Street inSouth Philly and the wait staff
is classically trained, so theyget up every 20 minutes or so
(01:18):
and sing opera, and the food isit's Italian food and it's
fantastic as well.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Neat.
Can you give us a link to thatand I'll put it in the show
notes for anybody that might betraveling in the area.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, and to just add a little bit to that, if you
saw the 2006 movie Rocky Balboa,they used the Victor Cafe in
that movie, so that was Adrian'splace.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Okay, so now I know where you're talking about Very
good.
So I want to introduce Kat toour guest here today.
She has a background inneuropsychiatric and
neurodevelopmental research,project management and business
analysis.
She's also a self-proclaimedpositive psychology and
organizational dynamics geek whofinds joy in alleviating the
(02:05):
impediments caused by fixedstructures and fixed mindsets.
All right, so, Kat, the topicwe want to tackle today is are
we preparing Scrum Masters forsuccess?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, this question came up.
I'll start with the problem andhow it was exposed.
I think a lot of people arerunning into this question or
this problem, but for me it camefrom two separate groups of
people in social situations.
So I was at two differentparties in two different states
with two different groups ofpeople and ending up in
conversations about work, as wetend to do.
(02:42):
And when I brought up being aScrum Master, I was really
surprised at the responses thatI got.
So one person was in finance, intech development and finance,
and he said, well, we had ScrumMasters, but we can run our own
meetings, so we got rid of them.
The other is, I believe, amachinist and he said, yeah, my
(03:03):
buddy said I can go to thistwo-day class and then just make
a whole bunch of money doingnothing if I want to be a Scrum
Master.
And I was really surprised atwhat people think of Scrum
Mastery outside of the agileworld.
I was used to and that I knew.
And then when we went to theAgile Online Summit last year,
somebody brought it up andcoined it the Agile Apocalypse
(03:26):
that people were losing faith inscrum masters or the role of a
scrum master.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I remember that.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah.
So that really got me thinkinglike are we just doing these
two-day trainings and this testand then just throwing people
out there like go do that thingand they, you know, not really
preparing them for everythingthat makes the scrum master role
magic?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
With your background in positive psychology and
organizational dynamics, whataspects of that cat can you lean
on to help prepare scrummasters for success?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
We have to start advocating for ourselves a
little bit better in multipleways.
A lot of the draw of being ascrum master is, you know,
coaching a team, removingimpediments.
There are these moment tomoment things that you get into
a team and you do and it makesyou feel good, it makes the team
feel good, but the focus is onthe team and how well the team
(04:25):
is doing, and it should be forcoaching, but we don't sit back
and advocate for ourselves, ourrole, we don't show our worth
and I think that's reallystarting to erode the career
path for a lot of scrum mastersout there.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
So have you seen firsthand examples of this?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, I think, even just right now, and looking at
scrum master jobs online, a lotof them are entry level.
A lot of them pay a lot lessthan they used to.
And you read the jobdescriptions it does read like
just a facilitator, andfacilitating is not just a job.
It's a big part of the job.
And it's a big part of the job.
And facilitating well is a bigpart of the job.
(05:09):
But it's not the only thingthat scrum masters do.
To be a scrum master, you haveto think like a CEO, persuade
like sales and marketing,improve like a process
improvement professional.
Keep the focus like a projectmanager.
Hype the team like acheerleader.
Help the teammates like aprocess improvement professional
.
Keep the focus like a projectmanager.
Hype the team like acheerleader.
Help the teammates like abusiness coach.
Design tools for sharing oursuccesses like a web designer.
(05:34):
So there's just so much to thejob and I feel like that isn't
really covered in the shorttraining that we have To get out
there and lead withoutauthority, to inspire people, to
facilitate well, to coach incommunication and technology and
processes and even politics,and to advocate for ourselves,
(05:54):
to really show what we've done.
To do all of that I think weneed to start analyzing or
showing our analysis more.
Analyzing or showing ouranalysis more.
So I think when you get inthere and you run your daily
meetings and you run yourretrospectives and your sprint
reviews and your plannings, andthat feels like the job when
(06:15):
you're getting so much done inthose meetings.
But we need to sit back and weneed to say who needs to see our
progress, what is the best wayfor me to show our progress to
the C-suite, to the rest of thecompany?
And we need to analyze morebefore we even start coaching or
leading or advocating.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So can you give us some examples of how one might
do that, because that's adaunting list that you gave us.
I imagine somebody who's saying, well, hey, this sounds like a
cool job being a scrum masterand I'd like to pivot into the
tech space, but I'm notnecessarily technical.
This is a way for me to get myfoot in the door.
(06:58):
But boy, what Kat just said,there's a lot to it.
Where do we get started?
Yes, there is a lot to it?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Where do we get started?
Yes, there is a lot to it.
I think we get started withunderstanding the business.
Why are we there?
What does the business do andthis is an opinion that might
not be as popular how does thebusiness make money?
As Scrum Masters, we're sofocused on well-functioning and
oiling the wheels of justprocesses and communication and
(07:28):
you know we'd sit back and gowhat makes the company money and
how do I help them do that?
We have to be business-mindedand to start doing that we need
baselines.
So another short story I wenton to one of my social media
groups for Scrum Masters and Iasked like, what are your
favorite baselines when youfirst start a new job as a Scrum
(07:51):
Master in a new company?
And I had a bunch of reactions.
Some of them were great, withsome great ideas, and other
reactions were oh, you don't doanything.
Don't do anything.
Those first 30 days.
And I think those first 30 daysare really important for
observing.
But that doesn't mean whilewe're observing we're not
(08:12):
gathering data.
I mean, why observe if you'renot going to gather the data?
So I think we need to make itthe norm for Scrum Masters to
come in and get their baselines.
They could be the DORA metrics,which is, if you're not
familiar, stands for DevOps,research and Assessment, and
they're just simple metrics thata lot of people use now.
(08:34):
Lead time, so how much time ittakes to make a change.
Deployment frequency, how oftenyou're putting things into
production see how often you'reputting things into production.
Mean time to restore, howquickly you get back to
functioning after an incident,and the change failure rate,
which is the percentage ofchanges that result in
disruption or defects orrollbacks.
(08:56):
So to know where the team is,just with their general
functioning.
That's the kind of the baselineof what we need.
But we don't need to stop there.
There's also the Scrumchecklist I'm probably going to
butcher this name, but Knieberg,k-n-i-b-e-r-g Scrum checklist
(09:17):
and it looks at a lot of thingsroles and responsibilities,
artifacts, self-assessment andit says you know where how
mature is, is the scrum, are thescrum teams, and is there
functioning?
And a lot of those things canbe filled in just by observing.
So I think in those first 30days you don't want to implement
anything.
Might be a little, might changethings a little if you put out
(09:39):
some questionnaires, but youdon't need to to really rile
anybody up to sit back, observe,dive into Jira or whatever
system they're using and getsome good baseline data so that
when we start to make changesand we start to really help the
teams make money for the company, we have a baseline to compare
(10:00):
that to and you can look backand say, since I've been here,
this is what's changed, this iswhat's become better.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So I want to go back to your leading statement.
What you talked about islearning how the company makes
money.
So you're really delving intothe business side of the house,
and so I want to paint a littlebit of a different picture,
because I I first asked youabout somebody that wanted to
(10:29):
break into tech and saw a scrummaster as a role that they could
do that.
But for those as such as myself, who brought up in the
engineering world, that side ofthe house is more foreign to us.
We're more about I want to tunethe motor right.
Yes, that's the exciting part.
(10:49):
I want to solve problems, hardproblems, technical problems,
and I want to get into the quoteunquote bits and the bytes of
how things work.
So what advice do you have forthose of us like myself that may
come from an engineeringbackground but want to pivot
into a scrum master role?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, I think there's a book called what the CEO
Wants you to Know Super helpful,just, I think Ram Charan I'm
probably butchering everybody'snames today because I've only
read things when it comes tonames and it talks about a focus
on cash flow like how, onprofit margins, on competitive
advantage, but does so in a waythat's really high level.
(11:33):
So you don't have to.
It's probably still a littleboring, depending on what you're
looking for or what you'reinterested in, but it can be
super helpful to understandreally how you bring money into
the company.
And it's a very unpopularopinion in Agile to say like,
okay, we'll learn the business,but we need to know we would
(11:57):
have done, because that's savingtime and resources as well.
So when you're talking aboutprofit margins, that really
matters and am I creating value?
Does it keep the customerscoming back?
(12:19):
How does it change ourcompetitive advantage?
It's very unpopular to come inAgile and say you need to know
the business, but only at a veryhigh level.
You don't need to knoweverything about funding.
You need to know what's goingto make this business more money
, what that I do makes thiscompany more profitable.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
How would you compare if someone were to ask you, Kat
, what is the difference betweenknowing the business and, if
we're talking software, knowingthe product?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Oh, I think knowing the product would be a small
circle in the knowing thebusiness Venn diagram.
So knowing the product isreally important.
Knowing the customers is reallyimportant.
Knowing the customers is reallyimportant and what keeps them
coming back and what might keepthem back in the future.
So that's another circle inthat larger knowing the business
circle.
And knowing what else is outthere is important too.
(13:19):
What can eat into our profits?
What new technologies arecoming down the pike, what new
companies have just kind ofdisrupted things?
Knowing your competitiveadvantage is really important
and a lot of that's going to bethe product manager, the product
owner.
They're going to be keepingtheir eyes on those things too.
(13:42):
But as a scrum master, you needto understand them if, if
nothing else.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
If you want to become a scrum master and you're
trying to be trying to prepare.
We've covered a couple ofdifferent things Knowing the
business, knowing the product.
What else do we need to beprepared to know?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Knowing people.
I think the thing that pulls alot of scrum masters in and
makes people go, wow, I do wantto take on this role is the
people.
I feel like being able to comein and help people get to where
they're going in a way that'sless stressful for them.
That's better for everybody.
(14:23):
I mean, who doesn't want thatright?
You want to come in, you wantto help, you want to make things
magical, but to do so you needto know people right.
So you need to know a lot aboutcommunication, how people react
to certain types ofcommunication.
So that's when coaching comesin and just understanding.
If you're an extreme introvertand a lot of your background is
(14:45):
technical and you're not thekind of person who regularly
ends up leading others, it'sgood to start with the basics.
You can start with ThinkingFast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
and Traversky.
Kahneman just passed last monthsince we've talked, but it's a
really great book and even justin the beginning there's a
(15:08):
discussion about how perceivedsocial threats are reacted to in
the brain the same as actualphysical threats.
So your brain reacts the samewhether a tiger's coming to eat
you or somebody's making youfeel like you're not up to task.
To help with that, you can alsolook into the Rock book.
It's called your Brain at Workand in that book they talk about
(15:30):
something called the SCARFmodel.
Scarf stands for the perceivedsocial threats, like ways in
which you can perceive a socialthreat.
Perceived social threats likeways in which you can perceive a
social threat, and that'sthreats to status, certainty,
autonomy, relatedness andfairness.
(15:52):
So those are baseline books.
That's just to understand howall people, no matter how
analytical we think we are, nomatter how sensible we think we
are, we're emotional people.
Once you really understand thatand have that base, you can
start learning how tocommunicate better.
My favorite tool for doing thatis called the Savvy Method.
It's the system for theanalysis of verbal interaction
and you can see that in the bookcalled Conversation
(16:14):
Transformation.
I'll give you all of theselinks.
This might be a lot at once,but Conversation conversation
transformation functions a lotlike a workbook that shows you
how to get through differenttypes of noise in conversations
Things like yes buts, thingslike verbal attacks.
You can learn how to talk topeople and really earn trust
(16:38):
with the person and get on thesame page with them and really
start making communication flowbetter.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
So I'm going to put you on the spot.
Yeah, you happen to have anexample of that for us where
maybe you had someone who wasdifficult to either deal with or
communicate with that you hadto invest some time and energy
into, and maybe some techniquesand some strategies that you use
to improve the time and energyinto, and maybe some techniques
and some strategies that you useto improve the communication,
either on an individual level ormaybe even at a team level.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, One thing that we deal with a lot as Scrum
Masters is complaints.
I love complaints and I'll tellyou why.
It sounds silly, right, but asa Scrum Master, if people are
complaining, they're talking,they're sharing information, and
(17:31):
that is half the battle, right?
So if someone's sharinginformation, what I want to do
is I want to let them feelcomfortable sharing it.
However, they need to startsharing it, and then I want to
guide them through to somethingthat can be helpful.
This was years ago when I wasworking in the lab and research
and I was working with someonewho complained all the time, and
(17:52):
I had just learned this in mygroup and team dynamics class in
my master's program.
This was before the book cameout, when it was just a pamphlet
like a worksheet.
This was before the book cameout, when it was just a pamphlet
(18:14):
like a worksheet, and I waslearning how to code
conversations and was so excitedto use this new information.
And you know I can'll tell youwhat the, the what to do with
complaints.
So someone complains this was afriend of mine who's still a
friend of mine, really greatfriend and you say, okay, well,
(18:36):
what would you like to seehappen?
And the first reaction you justlet them have, because it's
usually a little extreme well,people shouldn't do this, or why
do we even deal with X?
And you just let them go for awhile.
And you go, okay, but tangiblyor in reality, or what would you
really like to see happen?
That sounds great.
(18:57):
We'd all love that, but, givenwhat we are working with, what
would you like to see happen?
And then get a little bit ofthought.
You give them time for theirthought and this is one of the
things about coaching.
You need to be very comfortablewith silence while people think
through things.
You don't want to push them andthey'll tell you what their
true goal is, what they reallywant to get to.
(19:19):
True goal is what they reallywant to get to.
And then you can say, okay, howdo we make that happen?
And the conversation goes on tois that within our control or
is it within our persuasion?
Can we persuade someone else tohelp us with that?
And you get to either asolution or you get to the point
where you say it's 100% outsideof our control.
There's no way for us to doanything about it.
(19:41):
What can we focus on?
To help make things better andto take a complaint and to get
someone to a place where theyfeel so much better about it.
Either way is just magical.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
That's a great word for it Magical.
Yeah, yes, thank you forsharing.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah, yeah, yes, thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, all right, kat.
So we've talked about thebusiness.
We've talked about knowing theproduct.
We've talked about knowing thepeople, how to relate to people.
When we started, you weretalking about things like Dora
metrics.
What about the technical sideof the house?
What?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
does scrum masters need to do to prepare for that,
or do they?
Yeah, I think one thing is tounderstand tech at the level of
goals and functioning andprocesses.
So, even if you can't code,even if your hands aren't in it,
you should know the systems.
What is the purpose of eachsystem?
(20:43):
What do they bring to the team?
What do they bring to thecompany?
How do they interact with eachother?
How do we measure how helpfulthey are?
This is already usually known.
You'll go into the team and theteam already knows if
something's good or bad.
All right, well, let's get somedata behind that and make
different choices.
Maybe you need different tech,maybe you need to do it in a
(21:05):
different way, maybe you need todo it even just in a different
sequence, but you won't knowthat until you start really
diving in.
So I think tech you handle,like a lot of other things.
You observe, you collect yourdata, you analyze it, you talk
to the team about it.
So that's in Scrum Master, beinga Scrum Master.
That's the thing is that youhave to know your team and trust
(21:27):
your team and trust what youknow about your team and let
them help you get to thesedecisions.
So if you know the tech at thelevel you need to know the tech
at which is not down in the codetech at the level you need to
know the tech at which is notdown in the code but up in the
purpose, and you trust your team, then you can have these good
conversations and you can get tobetter work days, more success
(21:50):
for your team and you can showthe data that you use to get
there.
And I think that's again.
I go back to data, but I thinkit's so important and I think
you know, as scrum masters, wesometimes forget and we go okay,
well, we did this many pointsand this much of the sprint were
defects and you know that datawe're used to, but to say these
(22:11):
processes aren't helpful or thistech is problematic and this is
how we know have data behindall of your questions and
suggestions is really helpful.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
We had a recent or a previous episode with Daria
Bagina and she talked aboutbeing technical enough because
her opinion had changed, whereshe didn't come from a technical
background and she didn't feelthat she needed to have it.
But over time she saw where itreally did help her empathize
(22:42):
with the rest of the team to betechnical enough to understand
their struggles and to feel thepain that they're feeling.
Okay, so we've talked aboutbusiness, we've talked about
product, we've talked aboutpeople, we've talked about
technical skills.
What else is there, kat?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
people.
We've talked about technicalskills.
What else is there, kat?
I think there's.
I'll say it's my Achilles heelmanaging up, you know, and
advocating to the C-suite.
It's easy when you first comeon board and you're listening to
them and their goals and theirvisions and you're saying this
is how we're going to get there.
It's different to make surethat you are holding them
accountable for what they needto give to the teams and making
(23:23):
sure that you're communicatingwhat Agile brings to the teams.
So we need to show that Agilehas made a difference.
The team focus on the team whatthey're doing, how they're
doing it, how it's changed, howthey're growing, how it's
changed, how they're growing andknowing at the beginning how
that affects the business.
Knowing that you've saved time,that you've increased what your
(23:51):
output, you're finishing moreprojects or more pieces of work.
Knowing what you're bringing tothe company.
You're making customers happier, you're making them stick
around, you're giving themfeatures that bring in new
customers.
Knowing what you're doing forthe business and communicating
it is very important and I thinkthat's something that also can
get lost when you're in the dayto day.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Members of the C-suite are often extremely busy
.
There's virtually no time to beable to put on their calendars.
How do you build thatrelationship and how do you just
get started with sharing someof these concerns that you're
seeing and getting buy-in fromthe C-suite?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
First of all, we'll start with the sprint reviews.
Whenever you're invitingC-suite or stakeholders that are
very busy to things like asprint review, doing so in a
really thoughtful way isimportant.
They are busy.
If you can block out a portionof the meeting and tell them
this is the meeting and we'll bediscussing what's important to
you between this time and thattime, they're going to be really
glad that you did that.
(24:46):
They'll know that.
You know that they're busy andthat's really important for
talking with the C-suite andbuilding that trust with them.
So when you're building theirtrust with a team, it's that
you're giving the team your timeand you're listening and what
they say is important and heard.
And when you're working withthe C-suite, it's that you know
(25:08):
that they're busy, you know thattheir time is important and you
are going to summarize for themand you are going to give them
what they need without reallytaking up too much of their time
.
So that's just the beginning tomake sure anytime, and having
them in the sprint review isreally helpful.
This is what we did here.
It is Show it off.
But all of the meetings aside, Ifind it's very helpful to have
(25:30):
dashboards that are very easy toread, and that's where, at the
beginning, I was saying you haveto design your tools for
sharing success.
Like a web designer, you haveto think about the C-suite as
another customer.
You don't want to add to theirmental load.
You want them to be able toclick a few buttons and check in
on how things are going and see, with some really nice graphics
(25:51):
, that the team's doing well ornot doing well or needs their
help.
And dashboards don't work foreveryone.
Again, you need to know yourpeople right, so some of them
might prefer reports or linkswhere they can dive down more
deeply past your dashboard.
So really, that's whyunderstanding information
graphics is really important.
There's a great book by theWall Street Journal it's Guide
(26:13):
to Information Graphics, so thatone's very helpful.
It's important to be impactfulwith.
When you're sharing informationto the C-suite it and you've
given them ways to get theinformation on their own as
often as you can, then you needto start making sure you're
(26:42):
communicating the team's needsvery clearly to them and when
they tell you that something'sgoing to happen, you don't just
say, okay, we treat it.
We should treat it just like wewould a team goal.
Okay when you want to know whensomething's expected to happen.
So a CEO says, oh, I'm going totake care of that.
I'm going to talk to themanager.
Okay, great, when should I checkback in to make sure that you
don't need anything else from me?
Put a time on it, just like youwould anything else, and then,
(27:05):
if it doesn't happen, reach backout?
How's this going?
When you get a moment, I lovethe statement.
When you carve out a moment,let me know this thing that you
told me you were going to do.
Can I help with it?
So it's really, reallyimportant to hold them
accountable in a way that'srespectful and to respect their
time and to give them what theyneed to make their decisions as
(27:28):
well.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
All right.
So what else in preparing ScrumMasters for success?
Kat?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
To go back to the two-day training idea that I'm
out there and I'm looking atjobs right now and I think so
many of them have turned back tomaking sure that the person is
already a developer, because Ithink there's so many people out
there who got their scrummaster certification and they
haven't had good training andcoaching or business analysis or
(27:56):
graphics and dashboarding andall these things that have to
come together to make a reallypowerful scrum master and they
said well, you know, we need tonarrow the field somehow and I
think it's easy to fall back onmaking sure that they're
technical and I think maybe weneed a better way to certify
people to say they do have allof these things.
(28:16):
They don't just know theceremonies and the roles, the
baseline things that you need toknow to just know what a scrum
master is, but they can coach,they can handle data, they can
map processes and improve them,they can create dashboards to
share information.
There's so much about the ScrumMaster job.
(28:38):
That's soft, or soft skills,which I know a lot of people
don't like that term and that'sthe pull.
That is the pull right To be aScrum Master.
Those soft skills are sofulfilling.
We can't forget about the rest.
There are analytical skillsthat are absolutely needed, that
we need to show off and we needto say scrum masters and agile
(29:00):
in general can do so much forthe team and can feel like a
magic bullet.
And here is the example andhere is the data, and here's my
beautiful graphic that's justgoing to make you so happy.
That ties everything to whatthe business goal is and what
the money that the business ismaking.
And keep making sure that youhave a scrum master for your
(29:23):
teams, or an agile coach, asthey're often called.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
So, as we start coming to a close here, kat, it
seems like there's one thingthat we're missing, that you've
alluded to, but we haven't saidthat we need to prepare scrum
masters for success, and that'sbeing a lover of books.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yes, oh, yes, I've alluded to maybe a few times.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
You know I say that in Jess, but I think the two-day
courses have their place.
I think that they're good,foundational.
It's like getting a driver'slicense you take a written test
and you take a driver's test andthen all of a sudden, you're
able to drive now.
And for those of you who don'thave children, who have gone
(30:14):
through that stage as parents,that's a very frightful thing.
To know that your child now hasa driver's license and can
drive on the road on theinterstate Doesn't mean they're
experienced.
So scrum masters do requiresome level of experience and
it's not an entry-level position.
The part about being a lover ofbooks you really do have to
(30:36):
commit to being truly being alifelong learner.
If you're the type person thatjust wants to tell me what I
need to do and that's my job,and now I know my job I just
need to continue crafting it.
That's not the role of a scrummaster.
You continually are looking fornew ways to energize yourself,
the team, the business, wouldn'tyou say?
(30:57):
Kat?
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah, and I'll add to that, mark, and I'll say
podcasts too.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Ah, there you go, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
I mean, agile podcasts are great.
This podcast has been great.
Finding this after the AgileOnline Summit was fantastic.
And for newer Scrum Masters man, what a resource.
Right, you can come in andlisten to these stories and
learn from people who've been inthe battlefield for so long.
But also business podcasts.
You know HBR has quite a fewthat are great.
(31:27):
You know the Harvard BusinessReview.
They have one that'sspecifically about executive
coaching.
That's really good.
There are business analysispodcasts out there.
You know books podcasts, likeyou said, lifelong learning and
I think that people who arereally drawn to being a Scrum
Master that's who they are.
I think you love the softskills, you love the learning
(31:49):
and you want to share thelearning.
You want to gobble it all upand you want everyone else to do
the same, you know so All right, I'll know you after the show.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
So thank you for the spot.
Yeah, all right, kat.
Well, if our listeners want toget in touch with you, what's
the best way for them to do that?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Just on LinkedIn.
I'll share the link, but it'sKat Buckwalter and that's mostly
what I have right now.
I'll be working on more in thefuture, but it's Kat Buckwalter
and that's mostly what I haveright now.
I'll be working on more in thefuture, but everything in time.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
All right, great Well , we'll fill up those show notes
.
Also, put Kat's LinkedInprofile there for you to reach
out to her.
I'm sure she will be more thanwilling to engage with you, to
connect with you there.
So, it's been a great episode.
So, kat, thank you for being aguest.
Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Thank you, mark, it's been great.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
All right.
So this has been anotherepisode of the agile within.
We'll see you next time.
Thanks for joining us foranother episode of the agile
within.
If you haven't already, pleasejoin our LinkedIn page to stay
in touch.
Just search for the AgileWithin and please spread the
(33:03):
word with your friends andcolleagues Until next time.
This has been your host, markMetz.
Welcome to the Agile Within.
I am your host, mark Metz.
My mission for this podcast isto provide Agile insights into
human values and behaviorsthrough genuine connections.
My guests and I will sharereal-life stories from our Agile
journeys, triumphs, blundersand everything in between, as
(00:29):
well as the lessons that we havelearned.
So get pumped, get rocking.
The Agile Within starts now.
Well, welcome back everybody tothe Agile Within.
This is your host, mark Metz.
Today.
I want to welcome our guest,kat Buchwalter Kat.
Welcome to the Agile Within.
This is your host, mark Metz.
Today.
I want to welcome our guest,kat Buckwalter.
Kat.
Welcome to the Agile Within.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Thanks for having me, Mark.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, great to have you.
If I'm traveling to Philly fora day, Kat, what's one thing
that I have to do?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Okay.
So there is a place I always goto food when I talk about
Philly.
We do have a great art scene,we have a great music scene, but
the food is just fantastic.
There's a place called theVictor Cafe.
It's on Dickinson Street inSouth Philly and the wait staff
is classically trained, so theyget up every 20 minutes or so
(01:18):
and sing opera, and the food isit's Italian food and it's
fantastic as well.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Neat.
Can you give us a link to thatand I'll put it in the show
notes for anybody that might betraveling in the area.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, and to just add a little bit to that, if you
saw the 2006 movie Rocky Balboa,they used the Victor Cafe in
that movie, so that was Adrian'splace.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Okay, so now I know where you're talking about Very
good.
So I want to introduce Kat toour guest here today.
She has a background inneuropsychiatric and
neurodevelopmental research,project management and business
analysis.
She's also a self-proclaimedpositive psychology and
organizational dynamics geek whofinds joy in alleviating the
(02:05):
impediments caused by fixedstructures and fixed mindsets.
All right, so, Kat, the topicwe want to tackle today is are
we preparing Scrum Masters forsuccess?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, this question came up.
I'll start with the problem andhow it was exposed.
I think a lot of people arerunning into this question or
this problem, but for me it camefrom two separate groups of
people in social situations.
So I was at two differentparties in two different states
with two different groups ofpeople and ending up in
conversations about work, as wetend to do.
(02:42):
And when I brought up being aScrum Master, I was really
surprised at the responses thatI got.
So one person was in finance, intech development and finance,
and he said, well, we had ScrumMasters, but we can run our own
meetings, so we got rid of them.
The other is, I believe, amachinist and he said, yeah, my
(03:03):
buddy said I can go to thistwo-day class and then just make
a whole bunch of money doingnothing if I want to be a Scrum
Master.
And I was really surprised atwhat people think of Scrum
Mastery outside of the agileworld.
I was used to and that I knew.
And then when we went to theAgile Online Summit last year,
somebody brought it up andcoined it the Agile Apocalypse
(03:26):
that people were losing faith inscrum masters or the role of a
scrum master.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I remember that.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah.
So that really got me thinkinglike are we just doing these
two-day trainings and this testand then just throwing people
out there like go do that thingand they, you know, not really
preparing them for everythingthat makes the scrum master role
magic?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
With your background in positive psychology and
organizational dynamics, whataspects of that cat can you lean
on to help prepare scrummasters for success?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
We have to start advocating for ourselves a
little bit better in multipleways.
A lot of the draw of being ascrum master is, you know,
coaching a team, removingimpediments.
There are these moment tomoment things that you get into
a team and you do and it makesyou feel good, it makes the team
feel good, but the focus is onthe team and how well the team
(04:25):
is doing, and it should be forcoaching, but we don't sit back
and advocate for ourselves, ourrole, we don't show our worth
and I think that's reallystarting to erode the career
path for a lot of scrum mastersout there.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
So have you seen firsthand examples of this?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, I think, even just right now, and looking at
scrum master jobs online, a lotof them are entry level.
A lot of them pay a lot lessthan they used to.
And you read the jobdescriptions it does read like
just a facilitator, andfacilitating is not just a job.
It's a big part of the job.
And it's a big part of the job.
And facilitating well is a bigpart of the job.
(05:09):
But it's not the only thingthat scrum masters do.
To be a scrum master, you haveto think like a CEO, persuade
like sales and marketing,improve like a process
improvement professional.
Keep the focus like a projectmanager.
Hype the team like acheerleader.
Help the teammates like aprocess improvement professional
.
Keep the focus like a projectmanager.
Hype the team like acheerleader.
Help the teammates like abusiness coach.
Design tools for sharing oursuccesses like a web designer.
(05:34):
So there's just so much to thejob and I feel like that isn't
really covered in the shorttraining that we have To get out
there and lead withoutauthority, to inspire people, to
facilitate well, to coach incommunication and technology and
processes and even politics,and to advocate for ourselves,
(05:54):
to really show what we've done.
To do all of that I think weneed to start analyzing or
showing our analysis more.
Analyzing or showing ouranalysis more.
So I think when you get inthere and you run your daily
meetings and you run yourretrospectives and your sprint
reviews and your plannings, andthat feels like the job when
(06:15):
you're getting so much done inthose meetings.
But we need to sit back and weneed to say who needs to see our
progress, what is the best wayfor me to show our progress to
the C-suite, to the rest of thecompany?
And we need to analyze morebefore we even start coaching or
leading or advocating.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So can you give us some examples of how one might
do that, because that's adaunting list that you gave us.
I imagine somebody who's saying, well, hey, this sounds like a
cool job being a scrum masterand I'd like to pivot into the
tech space, but I'm notnecessarily technical.
This is a way for me to get myfoot in the door.
(06:58):
But boy, what Kat just said,there's a lot to it.
Where do we get started?
Yes, there is a lot to it?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Where do we get started?
Yes, there is a lot to it.
I think we get started withunderstanding the business.
Why are we there?
What does the business do andthis is an opinion that might
not be as popular how does thebusiness make money?
As Scrum Masters, we're sofocused on well-functioning and
oiling the wheels of justprocesses and communication and
(07:28):
you know we'd sit back and gowhat makes the company money and
how do I help them do that?
We have to be business-mindedand to start doing that we need
baselines.
So another short story I wenton to one of my social media
groups for Scrum Masters and Iasked like, what are your
favorite baselines when youfirst start a new job as a Scrum
(07:51):
Master in a new company?
And I had a bunch of reactions.
Some of them were great, withsome great ideas, and other
reactions were oh, you don't doanything.
Don't do anything.
Those first 30 days.
And I think those first 30 daysare really important for
observing.
But that doesn't mean whilewe're observing we're not
(08:12):
gathering data.
I mean, why observe if you'renot going to gather the data?
So I think we need to make itthe norm for Scrum Masters to
come in and get their baselines.
They could be the DORA metrics,which is, if you're not
familiar, stands for DevOps,research and Assessment, and
they're just simple metrics thata lot of people use now.
(08:34):
Lead time, so how much time ittakes to make a change.
Deployment frequency, how oftenyou're putting things into
production see how often you'reputting things into production.
Mean time to restore, howquickly you get back to
functioning after an incident,and the change failure rate,
which is the percentage ofchanges that result in
disruption or defects orrollbacks.
(08:56):
So to know where the team is,just with their general
functioning.
That's the kind of the baselineof what we need.
But we don't need to stop there.
There's also the Scrumchecklist I'm probably going to
butcher this name, but Knieberg,k-n-i-b-e-r-g Scrum checklist
(09:17):
and it looks at a lot of thingsroles and responsibilities,
artifacts, self-assessment andit says you know where how
mature is, is the scrum, are thescrum teams, and is there
functioning?
And a lot of those things canbe filled in just by observing.
So I think in those first 30days you don't want to implement
anything.
Might be a little, might changethings a little if you put out
(09:39):
some questionnaires, but youdon't need to to really rile
anybody up to sit back, observe,dive into Jira or whatever
system they're using and getsome good baseline data so that
when we start to make changesand we start to really help the
teams make money for the company, we have a baseline to compare
(10:00):
that to and you can look backand say, since I've been here,
this is what's changed, this iswhat's become better.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So I want to go back to your leading statement.
What you talked about islearning how the company makes
money.
So you're really delving intothe business side of the house,
and so I want to paint a littlebit of a different picture,
because I I first asked youabout somebody that wanted to
(10:29):
break into tech and saw a scrummaster as a role that they could
do that.
But for those as such as myself, who brought up in the
engineering world, that side ofthe house is more foreign to us.
We're more about I want to tunethe motor right.
Yes, that's the exciting part.
(10:49):
I want to solve problems, hardproblems, technical problems,
and I want to get into the quoteunquote bits and the bytes of
how things work.
So what advice do you have forthose of us like myself that may
come from an engineeringbackground but want to pivot
into a scrum master role?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, I think there's a book called what the CEO
Wants you to Know Super helpful,just, I think Ram Charan I'm
probably butchering everybody'snames today because I've only
read things when it comes tonames and it talks about a focus
on cash flow like how, onprofit margins, on competitive
advantage, but does so in a waythat's really high level.
(11:33):
So you don't have to.
It's probably still a littleboring, depending on what you're
looking for or what you'reinterested in, but it can be
super helpful to understandreally how you bring money into
the company.
And it's a very unpopularopinion in Agile to say like,
okay, we'll learn the business,but we need to know we would
(11:57):
have done, because that's savingtime and resources as well.
So when you're talking aboutprofit margins, that really
matters and am I creating value?
Does it keep the customerscoming back?
(12:19):
How does it change ourcompetitive advantage?
It's very unpopular to come inAgile and say you need to know
the business, but only at a veryhigh level.
You don't need to knoweverything about funding.
You need to know what's goingto make this business more money
, what that I do makes thiscompany more profitable.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
How would you compare if someone were to ask you, Kat
, what is the difference betweenknowing the business and, if
we're talking software, knowingthe product?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Oh, I think knowing the product would be a small
circle in the knowing thebusiness Venn diagram.
So knowing the product isreally important.
Knowing the customers is reallyimportant.
Knowing the customers is reallyimportant and what keeps them
coming back and what might keepthem back in the future.
So that's another circle inthat larger knowing the business
circle.
And knowing what else is outthere is important too.
(13:19):
What can eat into our profits?
What new technologies arecoming down the pike, what new
companies have just kind ofdisrupted things?
Knowing your competitiveadvantage is really important
and a lot of that's going to bethe product manager, the product
owner.
They're going to be keepingtheir eyes on those things too.
(13:42):
But as a scrum master, you needto understand them if, if
nothing else.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
If you want to become a scrum master and you're
trying to be trying to prepare.
We've covered a couple ofdifferent things Knowing the
business, knowing the product.
What else do we need to beprepared to know?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Knowing people.
I think the thing that pulls alot of scrum masters in and
makes people go, wow, I do wantto take on this role is the
people.
I feel like being able to comein and help people get to where
they're going in a way that'sless stressful for them.
That's better for everybody.
(14:23):
I mean, who doesn't want thatright?
You want to come in, you wantto help, you want to make things
magical, but to do so you needto know people right.
So you need to know a lot aboutcommunication, how people react
to certain types ofcommunication.
So that's when coaching comesin and just understanding.
If you're an extreme introvertand a lot of your background is
(14:45):
technical and you're not thekind of person who regularly
ends up leading others, it'sgood to start with the basics.
You can start with ThinkingFast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
and Traversky.
Kahneman just passed last monthsince we've talked, but it's a
really great book and even justin the beginning there's a
(15:08):
discussion about how perceivedsocial threats are reacted to in
the brain the same as actualphysical threats.
So your brain reacts the samewhether a tiger's coming to eat
you or somebody's making youfeel like you're not up to task.
To help with that, you can alsolook into the Rock book.
It's called your Brain at Workand in that book they talk about
(15:30):
something called the SCARFmodel.
Scarf stands for the perceivedsocial threats, like ways in
which you can perceive a socialthreat.
Perceived social threats likeways in which you can perceive a
social threat, and that'sthreats to status, certainty,
autonomy, relatedness andfairness.
(15:52):
So those are baseline books.
That's just to understand howall people, no matter how
analytical we think we are, nomatter how sensible we think we
are, we're emotional people.
Once you really understand thatand have that base, you can
start learning how tocommunicate better.
My favorite tool for doing thatis called the Savvy Method.
It's the system for theanalysis of verbal interaction
and you can see that in the bookcalled Conversation
(16:14):
Transformation.
I'll give you all of theselinks.
This might be a lot at once,but Conversation conversation
transformation functions a lotlike a workbook that shows you
how to get through differenttypes of noise in conversations
Things like yes buts, thingslike verbal attacks.
You can learn how to talk topeople and really earn trust
(16:38):
with the person and get on thesame page with them and really
start making communication flowbetter.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
So I'm going to put you on the spot.
Yeah, you happen to have anexample of that for us where
maybe you had someone who wasdifficult to either deal with or
communicate with that you hadto invest some time and energy
into, and maybe some techniquesand some strategies that you use
to improve the time and energyinto, and maybe some techniques
and some strategies that you useto improve the communication,
either on an individual level ormaybe even at a team level.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, One thing that we deal with a lot as Scrum
Masters is complaints.
I love complaints and I'll tellyou why.
It sounds silly, right, but asa Scrum Master, if people are
complaining, they're talking,they're sharing information, and
(17:31):
that is half the battle, right?
So if someone's sharinginformation, what I want to do
is I want to let them feelcomfortable sharing it.
However, they need to startsharing it, and then I want to
guide them through to somethingthat can be helpful.
This was years ago when I wasworking in the lab and research
and I was working with someonewho complained all the time, and
(17:52):
I had just learned this in mygroup and team dynamics class in
my master's program.
This was before the book cameout, when it was just a pamphlet
like a worksheet.
This was before the book cameout, when it was just a pamphlet
(18:14):
like a worksheet, and I waslearning how to code
conversations and was so excitedto use this new information.
And you know I can'll tell youwhat the, the what to do with
complaints.
So someone complains this was afriend of mine who's still a
friend of mine, really greatfriend and you say, okay, well,
(18:36):
what would you like to seehappen?
And the first reaction you justlet them have, because it's
usually a little extreme well,people shouldn't do this, or why
do we even deal with X?
And you just let them go for awhile.
And you go, okay, but tangiblyor in reality, or what would you
really like to see happen?
That sounds great.
(18:57):
We'd all love that, but, givenwhat we are working with, what
would you like to see happen?
And then get a little bit ofthought.
You give them time for theirthought and this is one of the
things about coaching.
You need to be very comfortablewith silence while people think
through things.
You don't want to push them andthey'll tell you what their
true goal is, what they reallywant to get to.
(19:19):
True goal is what they reallywant to get to.
And then you can say, okay, howdo we make that happen?
And the conversation goes on tois that within our control or
is it within our persuasion?
Can we persuade someone else tohelp us with that?
And you get to either asolution or you get to the point
where you say it's 100% outsideof our control.
There's no way for us to doanything about it.
(19:41):
What can we focus on?
To help make things better andto take a complaint and to get
someone to a place where theyfeel so much better about it.
Either way is just magical.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
That's a great word for it Magical.
Yeah, yes, thank you forsharing.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah, yeah, yes, thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, all right, kat.
So we've talked about thebusiness.
We've talked about knowing theproduct.
We've talked about knowing thepeople, how to relate to people.
When we started, you weretalking about things like Dora
metrics.
What about the technical sideof the house?
What?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
does scrum masters need to do to prepare for that,
or do they?
Yeah, I think one thing is tounderstand tech at the level of
goals and functioning andprocesses.
So, even if you can't code,even if your hands aren't in it,
you should know the systems.
What is the purpose of eachsystem?
(20:43):
What do they bring to the team?
What do they bring to thecompany?
How do they interact with eachother?
How do we measure how helpfulthey are?
This is already usually known.
You'll go into the team and theteam already knows if
something's good or bad.
All right, well, let's get somedata behind that and make
different choices.
Maybe you need different tech,maybe you need to do it in a
(21:05):
different way, maybe you need todo it even just in a different
sequence, but you won't knowthat until you start really
diving in.
So I think tech you handle,like a lot of other things.
You observe, you collect yourdata, you analyze it, you talk
to the team about it.
So that's in Scrum Master, beinga Scrum Master.
That's the thing is that youhave to know your team and trust
(21:27):
your team and trust what youknow about your team and let
them help you get to thesedecisions.
So if you know the tech at thelevel you need to know the tech
at which is not down in the codetech at the level you need to
know the tech at which is notdown in the code but up in the
purpose, and you trust your team, then you can have these good
conversations and you can get tobetter work days, more success
(21:50):
for your team and you can showthe data that you use to get
there.
And I think that's again.
I go back to data, but I thinkit's so important and I think
you know, as scrum masters, wesometimes forget and we go okay,
well, we did this many pointsand this much of the sprint were
defects and you know that datawe're used to, but to say these
(22:11):
processes aren't helpful or thistech is problematic and this is
how we know have data behindall of your questions and
suggestions is really helpful.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
We had a recent or a previous episode with Daria
Bagina and she talked aboutbeing technical enough because
her opinion had changed, whereshe didn't come from a technical
background and she didn't feelthat she needed to have it.
But over time she saw where itreally did help her empathize
(22:42):
with the rest of the team to betechnical enough to understand
their struggles and to feel thepain that they're feeling.
Okay, so we've talked aboutbusiness, we've talked about
product, we've talked aboutpeople, we've talked about
technical skills.
What else is there, kat?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
people.
We've talked about technicalskills.
What else is there, kat?
I think there's.
I'll say it's my Achilles heelmanaging up, you know, and
advocating to the C-suite.
It's easy when you first comeon board and you're listening to
them and their goals and theirvisions and you're saying this
is how we're going to get there.
It's different to make surethat you are holding them
accountable for what they needto give to the teams and making
(23:23):
sure that you're communicatingwhat Agile brings to the teams.
So we need to show that Agilehas made a difference.
The team focus on the team whatthey're doing, how they're
doing it, how it's changed, howthey're growing, how it's
changed, how they're growing andknowing at the beginning how
that affects the business.
Knowing that you've saved time,that you've increased what your
(23:51):
output, you're finishing moreprojects or more pieces of work.
Knowing what you're bringing tothe company.
You're making customers happier, you're making them stick
around, you're giving themfeatures that bring in new
customers.
Knowing what you're doing forthe business and communicating
it is very important and I thinkthat's something that also can
get lost when you're in the dayto day.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Members of the C-suite are often extremely busy
.
There's virtually no time to beable to put on their calendars.
How do you build thatrelationship and how do you just
get started with sharing someof these concerns that you're
seeing and getting buy-in fromthe C-suite?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
First of all, we'll start with the sprint reviews.
Whenever you're invitingC-suite or stakeholders that are
very busy to things like asprint review, doing so in a
really thoughtful way isimportant.
They are busy.
If you can block out a portionof the meeting and tell them
this is the meeting and we'll bediscussing what's important to
you between this time and thattime, they're going to be really
glad that you did that.
(24:46):
They'll know that.
You know that they're busy andthat's really important for
talking with the C-suite andbuilding that trust with them.
So when you're building theirtrust with a team, it's that
you're giving the team your timeand you're listening and what
they say is important and heard.
And when you're working withthe C-suite, it's that you know
(25:08):
that they're busy, you know thattheir time is important and you
are going to summarize for themand you are going to give them
what they need without reallytaking up too much of their time
.
So that's just the beginning tomake sure anytime, and having
them in the sprint review isreally helpful.
This is what we did here.
It is Show it off.
But all of the meetings aside, Ifind it's very helpful to have
(25:30):
dashboards that are very easy toread, and that's where, at the
beginning, I was saying you haveto design your tools for
sharing success.
Like a web designer, you haveto think about the C-suite as
another customer.
You don't want to add to theirmental load.
You want them to be able toclick a few buttons and check in
on how things are going and see, with some really nice graphics
(25:51):
, that the team's doing well ornot doing well or needs their
help.
And dashboards don't work foreveryone.
Again, you need to know yourpeople right, so some of them
might prefer reports or linkswhere they can dive down more
deeply past your dashboard.
So really, that's whyunderstanding information
graphics is really important.
There's a great book by theWall Street Journal it's Guide
(26:13):
to Information Graphics, so thatone's very helpful.
It's important to be impactfulwith.
When you're sharing informationto the C-suite it and you've
given them ways to get theinformation on their own as
often as you can, then you needto start making sure you're
(26:42):
communicating the team's needsvery clearly to them and when
they tell you that something'sgoing to happen, you don't just
say, okay, we treat it.
We should treat it just like wewould a team goal.
Okay when you want to know whensomething's expected to happen.
So a CEO says, oh, I'm going totake care of that.
I'm going to talk to themanager.
Okay, great, when should I checkback in to make sure that you
don't need anything else from me?
Put a time on it, just like youwould anything else, and then,
(27:05):
if it doesn't happen, reach backout?
How's this going?
When you get a moment, I lovethe statement.
When you carve out a moment,let me know this thing that you
told me you were going to do.
Can I help with it?
So it's really, reallyimportant to hold them
accountable in a way that'srespectful and to respect their
time and to give them what theyneed to make their decisions as
(27:28):
well.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
All right.
So what else in preparing ScrumMasters for success?
Kat?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
To go back to the two-day training idea that I'm
out there and I'm looking atjobs right now and I think so
many of them have turned back tomaking sure that the person is
already a developer, because Ithink there's so many people out
there who got their scrummaster certification and they
haven't had good training andcoaching or business analysis or
(27:56):
graphics and dashboarding andall these things that have to
come together to make a reallypowerful scrum master and they
said well, you know, we need tonarrow the field somehow and I
think it's easy to fall back onmaking sure that they're
technical and I think maybe weneed a better way to certify
people to say they do have allof these things.
(28:16):
They don't just know theceremonies and the roles, the
baseline things that you need toknow to just know what a scrum
master is, but they can coach,they can handle data, they can
map processes and improve them,they can create dashboards to
share information.
There's so much about the ScrumMaster job.
(28:38):
That's soft, or soft skills,which I know a lot of people
don't like that term and that'sthe pull.
That is the pull right To be aScrum Master.
Those soft skills are sofulfilling.
We can't forget about the rest.
There are analytical skillsthat are absolutely needed, that
we need to show off and we needto say scrum masters and agile
(29:00):
in general can do so much forthe team and can feel like a
magic bullet.
And here is the example andhere is the data, and here's my
beautiful graphic that's justgoing to make you so happy.
That ties everything to whatthe business goal is and what
the money that the business ismaking.
And keep making sure that youhave a scrum master for your
(29:23):
teams, or an agile coach, asthey're often called.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
So, as we start coming to a close here, kat, it
seems like there's one thingthat we're missing, that you've
alluded to, but we haven't saidthat we need to prepare scrum
masters for success, and that'sbeing a lover of books.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yes, oh, yes, I've alluded to maybe a few times.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
You know I say that in Jess, but I think the two-day
courses have their place.
I think that they're good,foundational.
It's like getting a driver'slicense you take a written test
and you take a driver's test andthen all of a sudden, you're
able to drive now.
And for those of you who don'thave children, who have gone
(30:14):
through that stage as parents,that's a very frightful thing.
To know that your child now hasa driver's license and can
drive on the road on theinterstate Doesn't mean they're
experienced.
So scrum masters do requiresome level of experience and
it's not an entry-level position.
The part about being a lover ofbooks you really do have to
(30:36):
commit to being truly being alifelong learner.
If you're the type person thatjust wants to tell me what I
need to do and that's my job,and now I know my job I just
need to continue crafting it.
That's not the role of a scrummaster.
You continually are looking fornew ways to energize yourself,
the team, the business, wouldn'tyou say?
(30:57):
Kat?
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah, and I'll add to that, mark, and I'll say
podcasts too.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Ah, there you go, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
I mean, agile podcasts are great.
This podcast has been great.
Finding this after the AgileOnline Summit was fantastic.
And for newer Scrum Masters man, what a resource.
Right, you can come in andlisten to these stories and
learn from people who've been inthe battlefield for so long.
But also business podcasts.
You know HBR has quite a fewthat are great.
(31:27):
You know the Harvard BusinessReview.
They have one that'sspecifically about executive
coaching.
That's really good.
There are business analysispodcasts out there.
You know books podcasts, likeyou said, lifelong learning and
I think that people who arereally drawn to being a Scrum
Master that's who they are.
I think you love the softskills, you love the learning
(31:49):
and you want to share thelearning.
You want to gobble it all upand you want everyone else to do
the same, you know so All right, I'll know you after the show.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
So thank you for the spot.
Yeah, all right, kat.
Well, if our listeners want toget in touch with you, what's
the best way for them to do that?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Just on LinkedIn.
I'll share the link, but it'sKat Buckwalter and that's mostly
what I have right now.
I'll be working on more in thefuture, but it's Kat Buckwalter
and that's mostly what I haveright now.
I'll be working on more in thefuture, but everything in time.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
All right, great Well , we'll fill up those show notes
.
Also, put Kat's LinkedInprofile there for you to reach
out to her.
I'm sure she will be more thanwilling to engage with you, to
connect with you there.
So, it's been a great episode.
So, kat, thank you for being aguest.
Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Thank you, mark, it's been great.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
All right.
So this has been anotherepisode of the agile within.
We'll see you next time.
Thanks for joining us foranother episode of the agile
within.
If you haven't already, pleasejoin our LinkedIn page to stay
in touch.
Just search for the AgileWithin and please spread the
(33:03):
word with your friends andcolleagues Until next time.
This has been your host, markMetz.
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