Presentation from Keep Austin Agile 2014 and Scrum Gathering New Orleans. 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. Today’s presentation
• What does “Scrum Master as
Team Coach” mean?
• What is a high performing team?
• What tools can you use to coach
a team to become high performing?

5. 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! Image by Pictofigo

6. Building a high performing team
• Self-organizing
• Cross-functional
• Accountable as a team
• Striving for AWESOME
The Scrum Master reinforces
the “team” mentality
Images by Pictofigo

7. The High Performance Tree
Constructive
disagreement Consensus-driven
Get the right
business value

8. 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 Images by Pictofigo

9. How to use the tree with your team
• Project kick-offs
– Review the values,
characteristics and benefits
– Define working agreements
• Retrospectives
– Have the team evaluate the
strength of the values,
benefits in the team
Images by Pictofigo

10. 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
Image by Pictofigo

11. What makes a question Powerful?
• Open-ended
• Move the team forward to what it desires
rather than ask for justification
• Not leading to a particular answer
• Reflect active listening
Image by Pictofigo

12. Activity:
• Partner up; one person will talk about his/her
team
• Other person picks 3 powerful question cards.
During the conversation, only ask
these questions
• To start the conversation, ask:
Where is your team weakest? Image by Pictofigo

13. What did you learn?
Image by Pictofigo

14. Scrum Master as Team Coach
1. Use metaphors to describe
abstract concepts and feelings
2. Use powerful questions to invite
discovery, clarity, and action
Image by Pictofigo
Practice these tools with your team
to coach them to high performance

15. Resources
• Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins
• Images from Pictofigo, www.pictofigo.com

16. Contact
allison.pollard@improvingenterprises.com
@allison_pollard
cherie.silas@improvingenterprises.com
@cheriesilas
Images by Pictofigo