Nagesh Sharma

As promised, here is part two of the three-part blog series, inspired by the writings of John C. Maxwell, “The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential.”

It's been a while since I wrote a blog, here is some good news, this is part 1 of a 3 part blog series, inspired by the writings of John C. Maxwell, “The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential.”

Who wouldn't want to achieve awesomeness at work? Great Scrum Masters help make this a reality. The world is changing more rapidly than ever, bringing with it more unknowns than known. And without strong leaders to guide our teams through this time of complexity and uncertainty, we won't fare very well at all. But I can let you all in on a little secret: The key to enduring success in leadership is the ability to stay nimble and to "Leadershift," as John C. Maxwell explains in his book by the same name. You may also like a blog from my friend and fellow PST Christiaan Verwijs: What Makes a Scrum Master Successful? Insights From 30 of the Best . This article will take you through this concept as well as Liz Wiseman's "Multipliers," an equally essential leadership skillset. As we know, a Scrum Master is a Servant Leader who serves not only the development team and product owner but the organization as a whole as well. We will explore how a Scrum Master can embrace this concept of Leadershift and help the Scrum team both create more synergy and become self-organizing. What is synergy? Synergy means a situation where the contributions of many add up to a total that exceeds the combined contribution of the individuals. Each one of us sees the world differently. One can leverage the power of synergy by practicing the Scrum Values of openness and respect. When a Development Team synergizes, they genuinely listen to each other with empathy, put themselves in each other's shoes, and try to tackle a shared challenge. Let's take a closer look at a few of the personas of Scrum Master as Leader and how a Scrum Master can use Multipliers to Leadershift in order to help people and teams to achieve greatness. Diminisher vs. Multiplier A Diminisher is generally a smart person, typically focused on their own intelligence, and who often stifles ideas from their team, which leads to lowering the team morale and motivation. A Diminisher also micromanages the team to the point that they become wholly dependent on him/her. Multipliers, on the other hand, do the opposite: They embrace the team's collective wisdom and increase the morale on the team. A Scrum Master can start being a Multiplier by following three key practices: First, create an environment of openness within which diverse perspectives are welcome and ensure team members respect each other for their different abilities and are able to celebrate differences Second, encourage bottom-up knowledge creation to embrace collective intelligence and ensure there is top-down support from the management Third, hold the team accountable for their actions and ensure they have access to the required resources to become successful Great Scrum Masters bring out the best in their team, rather than seeking to shine themselves. Tyrant vs. Liberator Tyrants create a tense atmosphere by throwing their weight around, fingerpointing, finding mistakes, and blaming people. However, there is a counterbalance to the Tyrant personality: the Liberator. A Scrum Master as a Liberator help to create built-in instability, a positive tension in which people want to rise up and give their best in an effort to make something great and achieve awesomeness. You can start being a Liberator by following these three practices: First, take a step back and let the team self-organize rather than frequently offering help or interfering with the team's self-organization. Second, encourage the team to give their best by challenging their skills and give their best. Third, ensure there is psychological safety; work with leadership and management to create a safe environment within which people feel it is okay to make mistakes and learn from them. In order to make this shift from soloist to a conductor, the Scrum Master needs to understand the people around him/her. Just like a conductor, the Scrum Master should be focussed on helping others shine. The key to embracing a growth mindset is to have a teachable spirit. Each day provides opportunities to learn and grow. To be a great Scrum Master, one needs to make the mindset shift from Soloist to Conductor. Authoritarian vs. Influencer John C Maxwell defines leadership as an influence in his various books; a Scrum Master's key tool is also leading by influence. So, where does this influence come from? Well, influence doesn't come from the position you hold in the company or the team as a Scrum Master. It comes with the Moral Authority that a Scrum Master lives by daily. So, what are the qualities inherent to this moral authority? Integrity: The ability to align your actions with your words and live your values consistently. This makes you dependable and trustworthy in the eyes of your team. Courage: Acting with courage allows not just the Scrum Master but also the people around you to reach their fullest potential. Combining Courage with Integrity, you'll be a Scrum Master team with great influence. Great leaders make the shift from climbing up the ladder, through teaching, mentoring and coaching, to building ladders for others to climb. Summary The best Leaders inspect and adapt through transparency and embrace empiricism; they Leadershift. That is, they make leadership changes that boost their own and the organization's growth. Further reading https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/hey-scrum-master-are-you-serving-leader https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/exploring-scrum-teams-journey-5-stages-being-awesome

This is a blog about leadership: leadership in Scrum Teams, communities, and businesses. It is also a blog about personal growth and offers a complimentary “action approach” to Scrum Masters, inspired by the book The Serving Leader.

If you can create a vision for your Scrum Team, and you find them all aligned in the right direction, your work has a reasonably good chance at success.

People don't always think of dev teams handling customer needs. But, for a Scrum team to have success understanding the customer is key. What is a company without customers? The answer is one word: "Nothing." Most companies and Scrum teams fail to understand what it takes to connect with their customers, what they need, and what matters most to them. Companies and Scrum teams who develop this understanding are innovative and are able to maximize their customer satisfaction and create a meaningful relationship for both company and the customers. In this article, we'll explore how Scrum teams can tap into the understanding of what matters to their customers most and create awesome products which customers love. Author Marty Cagan shares some great ways of creating successful products and connecting with customers in the book Inspired. One such technique that caught my attention is "Product Discovery." 1. Product Discovery: This technique helps Scrum teams validate whether the product is feasible, usable, and valuable by defining and testing using an MVP. Feasible: Development team must be capable of building it. Usable: customers must be able to use it. Valuable: the product itself must deliver value to customers, so they want to buy it. Performing an MVP exercise is key to delivering successful products. This allows Scrum teams to explore the product feasibility and help them to decide which features to cut and which to leave in. Once a minimal product is chalked out, a prototype can be built and tested with actual users to validate if it is usable and valuable. Practical Tip: I've found this story mapping exercise by Jeff Patton a great way to create MVP along with my Scrum team. This exercise requires great collaboration between all the roles in Scrum and it is fun too. Author Bernadette Jiwa describes how to connect with customers by embracing empathy, relevance, and affinity. Below are two tactics that are inspired by her work mentioned in the book Meaningful. 2. Staying Relevant to Customers by Understanding What They Really Want Does a great product guarantee great customer satisfaction? Today's customers really want products or services that take care of their needs. So, it is key to understand customer behavior and gear the product or services towards this behavior. In 2000, Google search results were limited to simple pages of text with links, but soon the developers realized that an image search was required to answer "the most popular search query" they had seen to date. As a result, Google image search came into existence on July 12, 2001. The success of "Google Images" reveals that it's about observing and understanding the customer's behavior and applying this knowledge to give a meaningful outcome that solves customer needs. So, how can you deliver what customers want? Putting yourself in the customer shoes and empathizing! With this information age and digital revolution, every company and Scrum team has a dozen opportunities to innovate and connect with their customers. However, innovation is often misunderstood as creating new, breakthrough products. It's really about designing stuff that matters to the people who use them. Apple may seem like a company driven by design, but their true strength lies in its customer-driven business model. Most companies and Scrum teams assume that if they think their ideas sound great, their customer will, too. Apple provides a great example here. When the iPhone6 was launched, a release that prompted the automatic transfer of U2's album onto the iPhone and every iTunes user for free and there wasn't any option to delete it. Apple assumed that they were giving a generous gift to the users, but failed to empathize with the customers who mostly saw it as an intrusion. All great teams and companies have one common characteristic - they connect emotionally with their customers. Today's customers are no more passive; they want to engage with the Scrum teams as co-creators, partners, and community members. Practical Tip: There are many tools that can be leveraged to explore what customers really want. One such tool that I used recently is "Value Proposition Canvas." 3. Understanding Customers' Perspectives and Creating a Story That Customers Can Connect WIth Author Bernadette Jiwa describes in his book the "difference model" that focuses on six P's (Purpose, Principles, People, Personal, Perceptions, and Product) to create a story your customers can connect with. Understanding how customers actually use your products and services are key to tapping into their satisfaction. This means developing their perspective and how they see things based on their experiences, belief, and culture, by going beyond basic demographics, like gender, age, and income. You'll need to learn how they spend their time and what invisible problems they encounter day-in-and-day-out. But, thanks to the internet, and a few other technologies, it's a cinch to gather the data. One great way to do this is the creation of Personas. Roman Pichler says Personas are fictional characters that have a name and picture; relevant characteristics such as a role, activities, behaviors, and attitudes; and a goal, which is the problem that has to be addressed or the benefit that should be provided. Personas offer a great learning opportunity to capture the needs and wants of the users and customers. Practical Tip: Create user personas to explore customers perspectives. An example persona template can be found here. Summary: I really like what Dave West said in his Keynote at Scrum Day Europe - Organizations need to move from where the customer was ancillary to the job that we do to where "the customer is central to the job that we do." We need to make a shift towards building teams that are more aligned with customers. Building great products is all about understanding the customers well - their perspectives and what they expect from the product by continuously engaging with them. Many companies put a lot of emphasis on collecting hard data and delivering features that customers want. However, what is also key is to collect soft data like feedback, stories, and even customer behavior. What other ways have you explored to connect with your customers? I am sure you'll have many to share. I'd love to hear from you in comments.

Are you ready to escape the average and become awesome? Do you want to overcome your fears and follow your dreams? We all want to escape the average and the humdrum. The essential step in achieving any great goal is to "START." Inspired by author Jon Acuff's book, Start, I've come up with this article in which we will explore ways to overcome the fear that holds us back from living our dreams and start our journey to being awesome. If you’re a Scrum team that is tired of being like every other team and are ready to start being awesome, join me in this journey of exploration towards being awesome. "Don't fear failure. Fear being in the exact same place next year as you are today." - Unknown Punch Fear in the Face and Get Comfortable With the Tension Fear prevents Scrum teams from chasing awesomeness by convincing them that it's impossible or unachievable. One simple way to overcome this obstacle is to do what you fear the most. Good Scrum teams know where they lack strength and take steps to get better at it using opportunities like Sprint retrospectives. Yet, many Scrum teams have no idea what "blind spots" derail their energy and enthusiasm. One of the great ways I've found to discover blind spots is reviewing key areas - this activity can be performed in Sprint retrospectives. For example, take a big flip chart and draw the famous golden circle "WHY, HOW, WHAT." In the innermost circle write your Values (as enumerated in the Agile Manifesto and Scrum Values), in the middle write Principles (Empiricism, Transparency, Inspection, Adaptation, Self-Organization, Cross Functionality, etc.), and toward the outside write complimentary Practices (Engineering practices, Burndown, estimation poker, etc.). Ask the entire team to post sticky notes on the Values, Principles, and Practices and pick 3 to 5 areas for development in each area and create a learning journey roadmap by having the team agree on which ones can be taken up in the upcoming Sprint and create tangible actionable improvements around these goals. And, of course, you'll need to inspect these goals in the next retrospective and continue the loop. "Principles define practices that tools support." So, now that you’re set to begin being awesome, it’s time to get familiar with the five stages of awesomeness. 1. Learning New Skills We are living in a world of complex systems development where more is unknown than known, so how can you know what works or not without experimenting with a bunch of different options?When a scientific experiment fails, the scientist isn’t considered a failure. We understand that even if the experiment didn’t succeed, something valuable is still learned. This continuous learning process is what enables people to become awesome. So, to start the learning process, in your next Sprint retrospective ask this question: if you knew that this next Sprint would be your last as a team, what would you do differently? Studies have shown that taking these kinds of small steps will prevent teams from getting exhausted and giving up. "How much do you agree with the statement: 'I just love coming to work'? What would make you agree with that statement more?" - Retrospective Coaching Cards (Geoff Watts) 2. Editing Your Life to Find Your Passion We saw that learning is all about trying many different, small things. In fact, learning is a way of gaining opportunities and choices. Unfortunately, we can’t be an expert in everything. So we need to start editing. Ask yourself: What gives me the most joy? It’s important to phrase the question exactly that way. Normally we start by asking result-based questions: What will give us more money?; Which businesses are growing?; etc. Although these are excellent questions, asking them isn’t the appropriate way to start. Being awesome means doing something that inspires you. And once you’ve discovered what it is, the ball starts rolling. For instance, let’s say that you’ve edited your life and realized that you absolutely love sharing ideas. You can apply this in many different ways: you could become a blogger, a writer, or a podcast host. Whatever it may be that you want to learn, just start acting on it. And if halfway through you realize that it’s not your way to awesomeness, simply edit it and move on to the next thing! Now that you’ve figured out what you want to focus on, it’s time to take the next step to mastery. "If money were suddenly to become obsolete and unnecessary, what would make you want to carry on working in this team? How can you get more of that?" - Retrospective Coaching Cards (Geoff Watts) 3. Mastery Here's the trick, start simple. Volunteer to support other team members; i.e., trade your time for learning and expertise. You need to do this more and more in order to get better at whatever you’re passionate about. For instance, if you want to become an awesome Scrum Master, first step: create a list of people who are already modeling the behavior and actions you’d like to do model. How did they get where they are? What books did they read or what podcasts did they listen to the most? What is their daily routine? How can you start modeling those behaviors and begin your journey? Next, prepare yourself for the inevitable critical feedback you’ll get as you continue your journey and passion. This is important, because of no matter who you are or what you’re working on, you’ll encounter antagonists. So, you need to recognize the difference between sheer hatred and constructive criticism. Constructive criticism helps you to improve. I started my career in the steel industry where we used to have a saying: "The finest steel is made from the hottest fire." 4. Harvesting the Results This is actually a difficult time, the closer you get to something, the more you realize how much is still left to do. People often lose the "drive" and thus hinder their progress. The loss of motivation can be dealt with by creating small finish lines that act as intermediate milestones. This way people and teams will always keep their momentum going. One great way to reach the Sprint goal(s) is by having smaller milestones throughout the Sprint and to leverage frequent inspection adaptations and just in time collaboration to validate what the Product Owner and team have learned. This can help to retain focus and refuel the impetus. Figure out what matters to you most now- FOCUS, (Remember the "YAGNI"principle). 5. Sharing the Love by Coaching Others Now that you’ve discovered something you love, you can coach others to craft their path to mastery. As it turns out, helping other people is incredibly fulfilling. How does this process work? ICF defines coaching as partnering with a coachee and provoking a process that inspires them to maximize personal and professional potential. Coaching starts with a guided conversation, it’s not about you, the focus should always be on the coachee. The coaching process starts with being a genuine listener and asking powerful questions. When you are at this stage, you also need to reflect back on stage 1 – the learning stage – and start the journey to awesomeness all over again by choosing a different improvement area. That's the secret of being a life-long learner. "The four laws of learning are explanation, demonstration, imitation, and repetition. To make sure this goal was achieved, I created eight laws of learning - namely, explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, and repetition.” - John Wooden Summary You can stop being average and start being awesome, but first, you need to know where to start. It’s about overcoming your fear and following the five stages of awesomeness: learning new skills, editing to find your passion, mastery, harvesting the results, and then coaching others. What are your biggest, wildest, craziest dreams! Have you written them somewhere yet? How are you making progress towards your crazy dreams? Don’t hold back. If you’ve always wanted to be a great Scrum Master or Entrepreneurial Product Owner, write it down! Then, go back and write down the first step you could take that would allow you to accomplish the smallest possible goal. Then start!

"Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success." - Henry Ford What do the Ford Motor company (Henry Ford, Clarence Avery, Peter Martin, Charles Sorensen), the Google team (Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, Omid Kordestani), and Walt Disney and "his nine old men" all have in common? "They are all great team players!" Great teams are more than just a bunch of smart people. In each of the above three cases, there is something special: a spark, a virtue, or some business environment "juju" that inspired team members to push their limits beyond the comfort zone and create products that redefined their businesses. So, how can you identify, build, and sustain such great team players? Patrick Lencioni reveals in his book "The ideal team player" the three indispensable virtues that we will briefly be exploring in the context of the Scrum team. 1. Hungry (Great Work Ethic and Drive) The first virtue of a great team player is hunger. Hungry team members have a strong work ethic, they hate being a slacker. They don't settle for mediocrity and are always looking for more - more learning, more responsibility, more action, and more contribution. Hungry team members engage in uncomfortable conflict and hold others accountable. They go above and beyond to achieve results and are always thinking about the next steps. 2. Social Smarts (EQ, Common Sense, People Skills) Having a squad of hungry members is essential. Being smart isn’t the same as being intelligent! They are good at practicing the Emotional Quotient. In the context of teamwork, smart means having social skills, the ability to get along with people and to work with them efficiently and effectively. Smart team members understand team dynamics and can tactfully engage in productive disagreement. They have good interpersonal awareness and tend to understand how to deal with others in the most effective way. "Humility is the foundation of all virtues." - Confucious 3. Humble (Humility - More Interested in Others) Great team players are humble individuals. For them, the team’s requirements and goals always come before their own. They don’t bother about their status or ego, instead, they focus on the welfare of the team as a whole. They define success collectively and commit to team goals. Those who lack all three virtues have very little chance of becoming great team players. Now, with this understanding let's explore six different personas of team members who lack either one or two of these virtues and what it takes to be an ideal team player. 1. Humble Only – The Pawn People who are only humble, and not hungry at all or smart are the “pawns” on a team. They are nice, kind-hearted individuals who just don’t have a great desire to get things done and lack the ability to build effective relationships with peers. They often are lone wolves and find great difficulty in creating an impact on the team. 2. Hungry Only – The Bulldozer Bulldozers are very determined to get things done, but with a focus on their own interests and without realizing how their actions could impact others. Such people have lots of drive and ambition, but they can’t work and get along with others. 3. Smart Only – The Charmer People who are social smart, but sorely lacking in humility and hunger, are“charmers.” They are fun and entertaining, and likable for a while, but have very little interest in the long-term well-being of the team. Often their contributions to the team is negligible, and they hardly care about other's success. 4. Humble and Hungry, but not Smart – The Accidental Mess Maker These people have good intentions and want to serve the team. However, their lack of emotional quotient and unawareness of how their words are received by others causes them to damage their interpersonal relations with the team. Accidental Mess Makers have no bad intentions and can usually take corrective feedback. Actionable advice: Become self-aware and possess a more positive attitude. Listen to others with an intent to understand and connect with people by engaging in a conversation. 5. Humble and Smart, but not Hungry – The Lovable Slacker These people survive in teams for a long time. They are proficient at working with and caring about peers. Unfortunately, they tend to do only as much as they are asked and seldom seek to take on more work or volunteer for additional responsibilities. They have limited passion for the work the team is doing. Lovable slackers need significant motivation and oversight, making them a drag on the team’s performance, more so than accidental mess makers. Actionable advice: Be more committed to your actions. Push yourself beyond your limit and get out of your comfort zone. 6. Hungry and Smart, but not Humble – The Skillful Politician These people are ambitious and extremely hard working, but only in as much as it will benefit them personally. They are skilled in portraying themselves as being humble and are able to convince people that they care about them. Actionable advice: Genuinely Care for others before yourself. Simply, say thank you to others and be more grateful. Humble, Hungry and Smart - The Ideal Team Player Ideal team players possess all the three virtues: hunger, humility, and social intelligence. They work with a sense of energy, passion, and take personal responsibility. They walk the talk and make people feel valued, understood, and included in all situations. Summary Not every organization needs to be built on teamwork. Yet if one chooses this path, it’s absolutely necessary for every team member to practice these three virtues. For all this to happen, leaders need to be great role models by promoting positive team player virtues. Every team player needs three virtues: a hunger to go above and beyond, the social smarts to communicate positively with the team, and humility to subdue their ego for the team’s collective good. If even one of these traits is lacking in a single team member, the whole team will suffer. Does your team practice these three virtues? Do you recognize the above six persons in your teams? What have you done so far to become a great team player? I'd like to hear from you in comments.

We always hear athletes talking about being 'in the zone.' But you don't have to be LeBron James to feel this type of hyper-focus. Learn how Scrum teams can harness it.

What makes a great team? Why do some teams achieve greatness, seeing their vision become reality, while others seem to go nowhere?