Presentation to DFW PMI Agile Community of Practice. Coaching skills that a Scrum Master can use - metaphor and powerful questions.

1. Beyond Removing Impediments:
Scrum Master as Team Coach
Image by Pictofigo

2. Allison Pollard
Firm believer in continuous
improvement and the power
of teams to affect change

3. Cherie Silas
Strong desire to help people
arrive at the place they define
as success in both personal
and professional life

4. The Scrum Master role
• VERY different from being a Project Manager
• Responsible for ensuring Scrum is understood
and followed
• Servant leader
The Scrum Master acts as the
Team’s coach!
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5. Building a high performing team
•
•
•
•
Self-organizing
Cross-functional
Accountable as a team
Striving for AWESOME
The Scrum Master reinforces
the “team” mentality
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6. The High Performance Tree
Get the right
Constructive
business value
disagreement Consensus-driven

7. Activity:
• Think about your current team
• Add more roots to the values
that are present
• Color in the fruits for the benefits
that are present
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8. How to use the tree with your team
• Project kick-offs
• Retrospectives
– Review the values,
characteristics and benefits
– Define working agreements
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– Have the team evaluate the
strength of the values,
benefits in the team

9. Coaching skill: asking questions
• Not about eliciting more information
for the Scrum Master
• Provoke the team to think, feel, or
react differently about the issue
at hand
The Scrum Master’s job is to stay
curious
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10. What makes a question Powerful?
• Not leading to a particular answer
• Move the team forward to what it desires
rather than ask for justification
• Reflect active listening
• Open-ended
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11. Activity:
• Partner up; one person will talk about his/her
team
• Other person picks 3 powerful question cards.
During the conversation, you can
only ask these questions.
• To start the conversation, ask:
Where is your team weakest?
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12. What did you learn?
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13. Resources
• Images by Pictofigo (www.pictofigo.com)
• High Performance Tree from Coaching Agile
Teams by Lyssa Adkins

14. Contact
allison.pollard@improvingenterprises.com
@allison_pollard
cherie.silas@improvingenterprises.com
@cheriesilas
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