ScrumMaster Workshop

Course 481T
Introduction and Overview
Access Your Course Materials

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Welcome!

• Meet your Instructor and Classmates

– Share your:
– Name
– Background / current position
– Course expectations

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Course Schedule

• Each day, the course will follow this schedule:

– Start Class
– Morning Break
– Lunch
– Resume Class
– Afternoon Break(s)
– End Time

• Course logistics:
– Facilities
– Emergency measures
– Wi-Fi information available at reception
– Local amenities
– If we can help improve your experience, please let us know!

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Activity 0.1 Personas

• In this activity you will create a persona card – a digital one if necessary -
introducing yourself to the rest of the class.
• Depending on the classroom circumstances, your instructor may also create a
working group to which you will introduce yourself. Your group will create a name for
itself and nominate one member to introduce the group, collectively and individually,
to the rest of the class.

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Persona Card

• My name is…
• I’m a...
• My Scrum experience...
• An interesting fact about me...
• I bring to this session...
• I wish to take away from this training...

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Course Objectives

• On completion of the course an attendee will be able to

• Appreciate the skills required of a ScrumMaster
• Facilitate dialogue between the Product Owner, Development team members,
customers, stakeholders and executives
• Respond confidently when encountering
– Resistance to change
– Lack of engagement
– Low motivation
– Unavailability of key people
• Help your organization adopt Scrum and support executives committed to Agile
values
• Remove impediments that prevent long-term, deep adoption of Scrum

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Course Objectives

• Explain the value of Scrum and Agile to sceptics

• Increase developer engagement to encourage greater accountability, commitment
and buy-in
• Extend the impact of Scrum throughout the organization
• Scale Scrum and Agile beyond a single team
• Leverage your learning to gain recognition and status as the local Agile expert in
your organization

In short, you will improve your implementation of Scrum in

the workplace and keep your team on the right track

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Initial Course Backlog

• Day One • Day Two

• Defining the Role of ScrumMaster • Coaching the Product Owner
• ScrumMaster as facilitator • ScrumMaster as Change Agent
• Coaching the Development Team • Scaling Scrum

This is our initial Backlog, but we will

inspect and adapt. Our promise is to
deliver the required outcomes, but do
not expect us to follow the material in
this workbook slide-by-slide.

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This graphic is © Emerald Hill Limited; licensed to Learning Tree International for use in course 481T.
In summary, the Scrum rules enumerate:
- 3 roles (Product Owner, ScrumMaster, Development Team)
- 3 artifacts (Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Potentially Shippable Increment)
- 4 events (Sprint Planning meeting, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective)
- Definition of Done
- Sprint (which contains all the other events)

The Scrum Guide (2017) now adds five Scrum values to the mix: Focus, Openness, Respect, Courage and Commitment

Each of the mandatory elements will be explored more fully in later chapters, but point out the smallness of the
ruleset. Some attendees may be surprised not to see reference to Burndown, Task Boards or Release Planning
meetings. The Scrum Guide no longer references these, not because they are deprecated, but because it is possible to
leave them out and still be faithful to Scrum (The Scrum Guide’s authors consciously present only the minimal set of
rules, partly to give the maximum amount of freedom for decision-making to the self-managing Scrum team). Most
Scrum teams, in practice, will use those techniques and we will see them later, but they are not essential elements of
Scrum.

Emphasize that the circles reflect the inspect and adapt feedback cycles that are fundamental to Scrum.
The self-organizing team model is a foundation of the Scrum framework. One aspect of this is that the framework
doesn’t mandate or even describe any practice or technique. It is for the Scrum Team to decide which practices suit its
context best.
The Product Owner is the only member of the Scrum Team with any individual, formal responsibility : “The one
wringable neck” as Ken Schwaber once said. By contrast, the ScrumMaster is accountable for a great deal – the success
of Scrum, no less – but has no individual authority. She or he exercises her responsibility through servant leadership
Note that while the characteristics are common to all Agile approaches, Scrum perhaps emphasizes
the top two more than other approaches
The rules of Scrum are presented in The Scrum Guide which is downloadable from scrumguides.org
The 3 dimensions are Framework Manager, Agile Coach, Change Agent. As an Agile Coach the Scrum Master is a
facilitator, which is also a major aspect of being a Framework Manager.
The ScrumMaster should also have a knowledge of some of the leading Agile practices
In general the SM role should be a full-time one, unless resources are scarce in the organization, in which case the SM
could also be a developer in the Development Team. It is not a good idea for an SM to have non-SM tasks outside the
Team. Highly mature Scrum Teams are less dependent on SMs and can share them, but otherwise the SM should be
dedicated to a single team.
This chart is adapted from Rubin (op. cit.) p 190
Notice the weight of impediment removal mid-Sprint
Homework is optional post-course activity
Wild et al state that “Facilitation is a method used to help groups (emphasis added-AOC) develop
processes that are effective in order to accomplish desired outcomes”. Jennifer L. Wild, Rebecca L.
Shambaugh, Jean Isberg and Pamela Kaul. 1999. “Facilitation, Coaching, Mentoring and Training:
Understanding the Differences”. International Association of Facilitators 1999 Annual Meeting.
Williamsburg, Virginia, USA.
Recall that a Facilitator is someone who tries to make a process easier for a group. There is no
requirement that the facilitator necessarily takes charge of the process. In terms of Scrum’s events, the
ScrumMaster need not even be present for the Daily Scrum (It is a meeting for developers). Often the
Product Owner takes the lead role in both the Sprint Planning and the Sprint Review meetings.
Nevertheless the ScrumMaster facilitates – in the purest sense – all of these mandatory Scrum events.
The “Diamond of participatory decision-making” described above, was developed by Sam Kaner with Lenny Lind, Catherine
Toldi, Sarah Fisk and Duane Berger, “It’s a lens through which a facilitator can observe and react to communication dynamics
that occur in meetings.”*

Divergent Zone
The early rounds of a discussion cover safe, familiar territory. People take positions that reflect conventional wisdom. Well-
worn disagreements are rehashed and proposals are made for obvious solutions. When the solution is genuinely obvious it
makes sense to close the discussion quickly. This is reflected in the small BAU diamond at the left of the diamond. But a
common pitfall is to close the discussion too quickly. It can then seem as though the facilitator has imposed a preconceived
“solution” rather than allow it to come out of a consensus of the group.

The Groan Zone

When problems have no easy solutions the group has to break out of the narrow band of familiar opinions and explore a
wider range of possibilities. Finding a new way of thinking about the problem is the goal, but the spread of opinions can
become cumbersome and difficult to manage. It can be hard for some people to stop expressing their own opinions and shift
to listening to the opinions of others. Individuals can get overloaded, disoriented, impatient and annoyed. Some people feels
misunderstood and keep repeating themselves. Others push for closure…
“Groups that tolerate the stress of the Groan Zone are far more likely to find their way to common ground. And discovering
common ground, in turn, is the precondition for insightful, innovative collaboration.”* Facilitation can be decisive in getting
a group through the Groan Zone successfully.

Convergent Zone
A group that has committed itself to thinking through a difficult problem will move forward in orderly, thoughtful steps.
First, the group generates and explores a diverse set of ideas. Then they would consolidate the best thinking into a proposal
for action.

Closure Zone
Decision made!

*Sam Kaner with Lenny Lind, 2014. Catherine Toldi, Sarah Fisk and Duane Berger. Faciltator’s Guide to Participatory
Decision-Making (Third Edition). Jossey Bass
The characteristics above can be used by the ScrumMaster to determine whether the team is in
“divergent” thinking mode or “convergent” thinking mode, and provide appropriate guidance
Kaner lists four “participatory values”:
• Full participation
• Mutual understanding
• Inclusive solutions
• Shared responsibility

These in turn lead to the four functions of the facilitator listed above. Notice that the words “encourage”, “promote”,
“foster”, “cultivate” imply that the group (in an Agile context, the team) takes ownership and responsibility for decision-
making. The facilitator’s role is to make it easier for them to do so.

Kaner suggests the benefits of Stronger Individuals include:

• Improved leadership skills
• Stronger powers of reasoning
• More confidence
• More commitment
• Better communication skills
• Greater ability to assume broader and more difficult responsibilities

The benefits of Stronger Groups are

• Greater ability to utilize multiple talents
• Access to more types of information
• Development of a respectful, supportive atmosphere
• Clear procedures for handling group dynamics
• Increased capacity for tackling difficult problems

Stronger Agreements have the benefits of:

• More ideas
• Higher quality ideas
• Better integration of diverse goals
• Wiser decisions
• More reliable follow-through
A description of each of these techniques can be found, amongst other places, in Kaner et al op.cit.
The effects of different decision rules on participation need to be considered
Person-in-Charge Decides Without Group Discussion gets team members into habit of doing what
they are told. Members will sit passively at meetings with the expectation that the person-in-charge is
not to be challenged
Person-in-Charge Decides After Group Discussion. Everyone tends to direct comments to the person-
in-charge since she is the main person to be convinced
Majority Vote. Since the goal is to obtain 51% agreement, the battle is for the undecided centre. Once
a majority is achieved the opinions of the majority can be disregarded
Unanimous Agreement. When everyone has the potential to block a decision, each participant has the
right to expect her view to be taken into account. Puts pressure on members to achieve mutual
understanding
At various points in the course attendees will be prompted to “Try This”. It is important to understand that the
suggestions offered are just that. They are not guaranteed to work and alternatives exist. Inspect-and-adapt implies
that every action a Team makes is an experiment. The same applies to ScrumMasters.
Remember the Scrum Team commits to a Sprint Goal: a value proposition (perhaps some umbrella functionality, or an
expected state of the new increment), but only forecasts which PBIs it might develop to meet the goal
Kerth’s work was based on end-of-project retrospectives, but his principles apply to Scrum’s end-of-iteration
retrospectives just as well
Note that the latest version of The Scrum Guide now requires that the Sprint Backlog must include at least one high
priority process improvement identified in the previous Sprint’s Retrospective
A major infraction is typically one that might throw the team or the scrum into meltdown – e.g., an ugly confrontation,
or multiple conversations taking place simultaneously when someone is responding to the questions.
This is the same graphic we saw in the previous chapter but with the Agile Coach
“dimension” expanded to include Conflict Navigator, Collaboration Conductor, Teacher and
Problem Solver as part of that aspect of the Scrum Master role.
Clearly there is, in any case, strong overlap between coaching and facilitation. Similarities that have
been listed include
• Both fields presume the client(s)/participant(s) are creative, resourceful and whole such that they
can find their own solutions
• Both use various ways to draw or pull information out of the participant(s)/client(s)
• Both use similar fundamental methods and skills such as Appreciative Inquiry, setting a safe
environment and relationship guidelines, and asing good questions, although they may not call
them the same names
• Both coach and facilitator need to be neutral without taking sides on issues
• Both expect the professional coach or facilitator to be flexible and adaptable in using different
techniques or methods to meet the client’s need
• Both require the professional coach or facilitator to actively listen to the client, to what is being said
and sometimes, more importantly, what is not being said, and
• Both help the client to dig deep to discover their own strengths, possibilities, change capacity
and/or solutions, and to move the client forward in their personal or group journey

From “Coach, Facilitator and Mentor – Who Is Doing What?” blogbost by Advanced Consulting and
Facilitation Ltd.,
Adkins observes that many people who have “made resoundingly successful transitions into agile
coaching” have the common characteristics listed above, or adopt them through their journey.
Conversely many of those who failed to make the transition obviously lacked these characteristics.
The ORID process was developed by the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) in Canada.
See Brian R Standford.2008. The Art of Focused Conversation. 100 ways to Evoke Group Wisdom in the
Workplace. Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs
Also Christine Hogan. 2003. Practical Facilitation: A Toolkit of Techniques. Kogan Page
The ScrumMaster also coaches at organization level, of course, but we discuss that
later in the course. Note that Agile coaching differs from some views of coaching
which regard it as something that operates only at the individual level.
Since one Sprint begins as soon as the previous one finishes there is a concentrated opportunity
for coaching intervention that bridges the end of the last Sprint and the beginning of the next
Team and Individual coaching are not mutually exclusive at any point: the graph is designed to
indicate how the relative weight of the two kinds varies during a Sprint
Agility favours moving work to stable, long-lived teams rather than moving “human resources” to
projects, and then breaking up the teams at the end of the projects. As we will see, genuine teams do
not come together overnight and it makes little sense to throw away such hard-won assets, pnly to
have to start the whole process again for the next project
The Team Performance Curve is from Katzenbach and Smith op.cit. Note that the weakest performing
configuration is the pseudo-team. The biggest gain is in the move from a potential team to a real team.
These terms are explored in the following slides
The Discipline of Teams by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith. Harvard Business Review Classics.
2008
Katzenbach and Smith make the point that “…if performance aspirations can be met
through individuals doing their respective jobs well, the working group approach is
more comfortable, less risky, and less disruptive than trying for more elusive team
performance levels. Indeed, if there is no performance need for the team approach,
efforts spent to improve the effectiveness of the working group make much more
sense than floundering around trying to become a team.”
“Mutual accountability” is, for Katzenbach and Smith, one of the characteristics that
distinguishes a team from a working group
Though well known, the Tuckman model is not well-understood. Groups have to move
through all of the stages to become “performing”, and many teams never get past the
“storming” phase. That much is understood. Less well appreciated is the fact that
Tuckman insists that conflict is both inevitable and necessary, and it is the way groups
handle conflict which determines how far and fas they drive through the model. In fact, it
is the “forming” and “norming” phases which are the most dangerous to a team’s
progression as conflict, for different reasons, can be hidden.
<AOC> The Storming stage can be painful, even agonising.
Jean Tabaka 2006. Collaboration Explained. Facilitation Skills for Software Project Leaders. Addison
Wesley.
This is a graphical summary of the characteristics listed by Geoff Watts in his book. He makes the point
that collaboration is not an inevitable product of group dynamics, but a skillset that can be individually
learned and must be embraced by all members of the Scrum Team. This involves coaching at the
individual level as well as the team levl.
According to Alistair Cockburn Shu-Ha-Ri has roots more than 400 years old in the Japanese theatrical
tradition. He uses it to name what he calls three levels of listening and learning: following, detaching
and fluent. At the Shu level the student will follow one technique (of potentially many suitable ones) or
follow one instructor to build a solid foundation of technical knowledge; at the Ha stage she reflects,
notices the limits of the technique and seeks to learn other techniques and the contexts in which they
might be best suited; and in Ri ceases to be a student at all, but a practitioner who develops original
solutions from a deep background knowledge of her art. By implication, teams move through similar
stages of development. Geoff Watts (op.cit.) explains Shu-Ha-Ri by analogy with the film “The Karate
Kid”. Lyssa Adkins (op.cit.) also discusses Shu-Ha-Ri in depth and points out that the experienced coach
will move fluidly between the different stances of Shu-Ha-Ri even in the same coaching intervention,
while recognizing that the ‘maturity’ of the team will determine the average’ weight’ of any one of the
stances

Alistair Cockburn.2006. Agile Software Development. Addison Wesley

Remember that there are no engineering practices mandated by Scrum. It is up to team to decide
which ones fit its context best.
Note how this relates to Shu-Ha-Ri
This illustrates the issue of the PO who is not seen as a peer member of the Scrum team.
In his otherwise excellent book, The Art of Business Value, Agilist Mark Schwartz describes the POs
relationship with the Scrum team as in the top diagram. He suggests computer professionals have used
the concept of encapsulation to model the Scrum team. The PO is now the interface to an
encapsulated Scrum team and all stakeholder communication – in either direction – is through the PO.
The Development Team in this scenario “takes orders” from the PO.

This is a mistaken view. The PO is a peer member of the Scrum team and is, yes, the public face of the
team, through which stakeholder requirements, requests etc., should be funneled, but the
Development Team has the right, and the responsibility, to talk directly to customers to clarify
requirements, for example. The PO is not a go-between. See Alan O’Callaghan’s blog “Eating at the
Scrum Café” at www.emerald-hill.co.uk for more discussion on this. Great Product Owner’s collaborate
intensively with the rest of the Scrum Team in order to be effective in their own role.
“gnomes underpants” is a reference to a South Park episode (season 2, episode 17, “gnomes”, first
broadcast on December 16, 1998) in which underwear keeps disappearing. Gnomes are collecting
them. When tracked down and interrogated they reveal their 3-part plan: 1 – collect underpants 3-
profit. Stage 2 is a question mark.
The gnomes’ song goes like this:
“Time to go to work, work all day,
Search for underpants. Hey!
We won’t stop until we have underpants
Yum Yum Yummy Yum Yay!
Time to go to work, work all night
Search for underpants. Hey!
We won’t stop until we have underpants
Yum Yum Yummy Yum Yay!”
We are assuming the use of User Stories here. An epic is a story too large too fit into a Sprint and
therefore needs to be split into smaller stories as it approaches the top of the Product Backlog. A
theme is some logical grouping of epics and stories
One of the more difficult transitions for Scrum Teams is the switch to just-in-time requirements
engineering. The Product Owner needs to be coached in the importance of identifying the most
important things for the Development Team to work on. The Development Team needs to understand
its responsibility to refine the Backlog, helping the Product Owner to get the topmost items “ready”
for development in the upcoming Sprint.

The term “epic” comes from the XP community and refers to a coarse-grained user story that needs to
be broken down further. A “theme” (not shown in the diagram) is a logical grouping of epics and/or
finer-grained stories. Although the current version of The Scrum Guide makes no reference to stories,
and user stories are not strictly part of the Scrum framework, most Scrum teams use them to
represent PBIs which is why these terms have become common in the Scrum community.
This is not an exhaustive list!
“The Product Owner may do the above work, or have the Development Team do it. However, the
Product Owner remains accountable” The Scrum Guide p.6
The term ‘grooming’ was replaced by ‘refinement’ as far back as the 2013 Scrum Guide
This is a key interaction between the Product Owner and the Development Team. The PO has business
decision-making authority, but to be effective s/he needs to constantly communicate the “why” as well
as the “what” to the Development Team. The Scrum team as a whole needs to take ownership of the
business goals of the development effort.
Decomposing user stories is dealt with in more detail in the Product Owner Workshop, and Learning
Tree has a two-day course 3653 entitled Splitting User Stories: Getting to ‘Ready”
<AOC> The image at “3. Manage Flow” is a Cumulative Flow Diagram
1
Dan North. “In Praise of Swarming”. Dan North and Associates.
Can Battle Maps which are not public have the effect of increasing distrust? – discuss!
Graphic © VersionOne (permission granted)
Graphic © Scaled Agile Academy
Scrum.Org Professional Scrum
Master Assessment
Certification

• If you pass the PSM I assessment you will receive the industry-recognized "PSM I"
certification, along with a PSM I logo that you can use to identify your achievement.
In addition, your name will be posted publicly for colleagues, managers, and
potential employers to see.
• Unlike other Scrum certifications that require only class attendance, Scrum.org
certification requires a minimum score on an online assessment. Attending a course
is neither required nor sufficient for certification. This gives Scrum.org certification
teeth and ensures that it has true value in the marketplace.
• Microsoft® uses the PSM I assessment to validate knowledge as part of
its Silver and Gold Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) competencies.

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Certification

• Fee: $150 per attempt

• Passing score: 85%
• Time limit: 60 minutes
• Number of Questions: 80
• Format: Multiple Choice, Multiple Answer and True/False
• Difficulty: Intermediate
• Language: English only
• Scrum Resources
• Required course: None
• Recommended courses: Professional Scrum Foundations or Professional Scrum
Master
• Practice Assessment: Scrum Open
• Ways to Learn More to help you prepare
• Passwords have no expiration date, but are valid for one attempt only

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Certification

• When you purchase a password, it is set up in our system and emailed to you within
one business day. All Students in a PSM or PSF course are emailed a password
upon completion of the course (typically within 3-5 business days).**
• Search the list of Professional Scrum Certificate Holders
• Should you wish to take the Scrum.Org PSM I assessment following the course
then you can purchase the assessment by visiting the following:
•
• https://www.scrum.org/professional-scrum-master-i-certification

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