Stephanie Ockerman

When I ask this rhetorical question in a training class or a coaching call, I often get knowing smiles and uncomfortable laughs.

When I first became a Scrum Master, I heard the phrase assume positive intent over and over again. And it really resonated with me.

Scrum Teams are always dealing with complex problems, unpredictability, and change.

As a coach, I’ve gotten many inquiries from colleagues and students asking for advice. How do I support my team during a time when we have and are still experiencing so much change and high levels of uncertainty? How do I even support myself right now? I too have struggled (and still do on a daily basis). Here's what I try to do. #1 - Get grounded in what's important to you. Whenever I’m faced with challenges, setbacks, and complex decisions, I go to my values and principles. I remind myself of my purpose. This applies to the individual and the team levels. When we are faced with so much change and uncertainty, we have an opportunity to really get clear on our values, principles, and purpose. These things change over time, and we can gain a lot of new insights right now. Remember that we need to appreciate individual needs are likely changing as well. It’s an amazing thing to see a team come together and find new ways of working that honor the values and needs of both the individuals and the collective. #2 - Accept and process emotions. There are so many emotions during this worldwide crisis. And we need to recognize them, accept them, and process them. They are a normal part of life, and we can leverage our emotions for insights and growth. When we try to deny or push down our emotions, that’s when we get into trouble because we are not letting ourselves be seen and not accepting ourselves. Remember that we are allowed to have many emotions at once. We can experience joy when we are grieving. We can laugh when we are scared. We can love when we are angry. And each person on your team is going to be in a different place emotionally, and that is okay. I can be worried while my colleague is celebrating; we don't need to protect people from our emotions or feel guilty about our emotions. #3 - Be generous. When I feel like so much is out of my control, I look for opportunities to be generous. And right now the world needs generosity more than ever. A metaphor I continue to hear is that while we may all be in the same storm, we are in different boats. The inequities in our systems and structures have been laid bare. And each person is being affected in different ways. I am not on the front lines, and I can’t take over the response to the crisis. However, I can still be generous. Be generous with what you have right now. It could be money, but it doesn’t have to be. Perhaps it’s your time. Maybe you can offer a skill or knowledge. Simply giving someone your attention and showing them you care about them can make a huge impact. Check-in with your team members. Ask them how they are doing and really mean it. Consider coming up with a team project to support your co-workers or community. Being generous helps you feel good, and it is a conscious choice you get to make. #4 - Work in shorter cycles and eliminate any sources of uncertainty that you can. When dealing with so much complexity and uncertainty, I have found that shortening the planning/delivery cycle is essential. (Yep, you knew I would bring empiricism into this.) This helps us get out of analysis paralysis, respond to changes earlier, learn faster, and deliver value sooner. And along with that, we need to eliminate any sources of uncertainty that we can. We do not need to worry about things that are not essential right now. My favorite musician Ben Folds, said it so well in his announcement to cancel the rest of his 2020 tour. "Just leaving shows on the books, going with wait-and-see until the last minute, is not in the best interest of ticket buyers, promoters, crew and even businesses near venues. It just adds to our endless list of uncertainties. What is needed in a time of such uncertainty, when a historic pandemic is killing people, erasing jobs, and disrupting life as we know it, is to shed as much of that uncertainty as possible, and to take stock of that which is certain.” Ben went on to explain the specific impacts this uncertainty would have in the context of his industry. I’m not suggesting that every team or organization should cancel everything. I am suggesting you look at where you have uncertainty that you can eliminate in your own context. And frequently revisit your decisions based on new information and changing circumstances. #5 - Let go of what no longer serves and start experimenting. It is time to revisit things like our product vision, the business model, how we define and measure value, our processes, our tools, how we work together, and much more. What is no longer serving? What assumptions have been proven wrong? What do we need to learn? What experiments can we run? On a personal level, we develop routines, habits, and relationships that keep us grounded, healthy, and productive. The things that may have served us well in the past may not be working anymore. We may need something else. We may need a more structured routine, or we may need more space and flow now. And the need may change from week to week. (It has for me). Cultivate openness and curiosity. I lean on my personal leadership and coaching skills during uncertain times. I give myself grace. I accept myself, even when I fail to show up the way I want to. And I own my impact. I trust my intuition and my resilience. I ask for what I need. Then I can tap into my coaching skills. Because coaching skills are the key to helping people and teams align around shared values and goals, integrate new learning, and navigate uncertainty and rapid change. That’s exactly why I created Coaching Skills for Impact. This self-guided online course is for Scrum Masters who want to level-up. In January, I began creating this online course because I wanted to reach more people and make these concepts more accessible because they changed my life and helped me be a better servant-leader. And finishing this course during the most uncertain time of my life has confirmed how much coaching skills are needed if we do truly want to step up and take responsibility for our world. And now this course is ready for you. If this feels like the right time to level-up your coaching skills, learn more about Coaching Skills for Impact.

Emotions are part of the human experience. Emotions are essentially energy in motion (e-motion). When our emotions are flowing freely, they can bring us energy and provide the fuel for us to transform and grow. Emotions are information. When our emotions are flowing freely, we have access to more information that we can use to help guide our decisions and our behaviors. I heard the term "emotional agility" on a meditation app, and it really resonated. So I wanted to riff on this concept from the agile coaching perspective. I am defining emotional agility as our ability to recognize and be with our emotions and other people's emotions, and tap into emotions to enable growth and transformation. We get into trouble when we try to deny or push away our emotions. We get into trouble when we cannot be with our emotions. This is when we may react blindly rather than choosing an intentional response. Or maybe we avoid situations that may bring up an emotion we don't want. There are not 'good emotions' or 'bad emotions.' Some emotions may feel more expansive while others may feel more constrictive. But they are all valid and informative, and we will experience the full gamut throughout out lives. The bigger and more authentically we live our lives, the wider our emotional experience will be. When people bring their skills and talents fully to life, that is when individuals, teams, and organizations thrive. When we do work that is meaningful to us, emotions will be present. As a Scrum Master and Agile Coach, I cannot count the number of times I have been disappointed, frustrated, enraged, bitter, or [fill in the blank] about something an organization did that undermined our progress enabling agile teams. Sometimes (okay, many times), I let that emotion run me. Maybe I wasted a lot of energy waging a war for no good reason. Maybe I forgot to assume positive intent and hurt an important relationship. Maybe I let the bitterness put out my fire. Maybe I reacted without thinking, both setting a bad example for my team and causing unnecessary stress. With lots of learning and practice, I now see situations like this and become aware of the emotion it brings up for me. My work matters to me, so it's okay if I am upset. But I don't react. I don't attack the person. I let myself feel it fully, knowing it will likely pass through me in 90 seconds. I look for what this tells me about myself. I assume positive intent and stay curious. I can then choose how to best influence agility. When we are trying to solve complex problems with a team of wonderfully diverse people, emotions will be present. Someone sends an email copying management, and I feel like I've been thrown under the bus. I am furious. Do I immediately send a snarky reply, or do I take a moment to think about why I feel this way and what I really want? A team member is going through a difficult time. Do I show my discomfort when he's feeling sorrowful at work, or do I recognize his needs and create a safe space for him to be? We didn't meet our Sprint Goal, and my team feels dejected. Do I say it's okay to fail and try to cheer the team up? Or do I encourage everyone to just sit with this feeling, learn from it, remember that we took a risk and did the best we could with what we had, and then focus on how we want the next Sprint to be? When we have difficult choices to make, emotions help point us in the right direction. With increasing complexity and unpredictability, we must be able to make decisions quickly and have foresight to see what may be coming. Yes, we should gather empirical data. But we cannot spend too much time gathering data and analyzing. Emotion can be one more piece of accessible information to add to the tapestry. If I am apathetic, what does that tell me? If I feel exuberant and a little nervous, what's important about that? If there is a feeling of heaviness with the team, what's behind that? When we don't have emotional agility, we let our emotions run our lives. We feel less in control. We will likely suffer the consequences of reacting without intention. We may be afraid to experience certain emotions. Then we don't expand our range. When we don't have emotional agility, we are less in tune with ourselves and others. We get stuck. We miss important information. Emotional agility helps you be a better coach, a better leader, a better team member. Emotional agility helps you make informed decisions, achieve your goals, and experience growth. It's a choice. Do we want to ignore or be run by our emotions? Or do we want to fully experience and learn from our emotions?

A question that frequently comes up in my Scrum Training courses is how to define a product.

I recently read the book The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom. And I noticed strong correlations with what it takes to be an effective Scrum Master.

You have a big heart and a lot of determination, and you want to create a better world. That may mean empowering and supporting your team.

This is a common question in my Professional Scrum classes.  It often comes up early when we are still learning the basics of the Scrum Framework.  And it comes up because people are already splitting their time between multiple Scrum Teams or are being told by their organizations that they will be.

In my Professional Scrum classes, I always get asked about best practices.  It may be about facilitating events, Product Backlog refinement, defining value, forming Scrum Teams, or creating good Sprint Goals.