Abstract:The Essence of Scrum summarizes the responsibilities of a Scrum Master into six categories: Agile coach, servant leader, “umbrella”, “scavenger”, process authority, and “change agent”. As an “umbrella”, the Scrum Master should protect the team from any distractions, including intra – team conflicts, relationships, etc.
background
When visiting companies, a number of business leaders have asked a similar question: “How can the Scrum Master guide someone on our team who is always working against me (or other members) and making the team atmosphere very bad?”
This article is aimed at such a problem to talk about, the team encountered “prickly head” should do?
Problem analysis
When I was a student, there were always a few thorns in the class, who made trouble and disturbed the classroom discipline — talking in class and picking up the teacher’s words, which made the teacher very headache. In organizations, many teams have one or two members who are difficult to work with and often make mistakes, impacting team delivery and causing management headaches.
In the process of communication, the author learned different types of prickles from different populations, including:
- Technical backbone
The technical backbone usually holds the core technology of the project and is an indispensable key role in development delivery, and the project’s absence is likely to have a greater impact. Some technical backbones tend to ignore others, even leaders, making it difficult to communicate and cooperate with the team.
- Old people standing still
Some of the people who came in at the same time went on to become project managers, while others were still writing basic code
In the same project, some of the team members have always had A performance and generous bonuses, while others have always been at the end of the team as the “tail of the crane”
In the latter of the two cases, some people show a negative attitude towards work, spreading negative energy within the team. Such as constantly complaining, disliking, gossiping, and making sarcastic remarks about other team members, especially newcomers.
- Employees who are planning to leave
Most people finish things well and make a transition when they leave. But there are a small number of people who like to break the pot when they leave — anyway, have to go, but also abide by what rules, so not serious handover, passive work, waiting for the departure procedures.
- A “newbie” with less work experience
Just as the so-called “new calves are not afraid of tigers”, some fresh graduates have done several projects in school, so they feel that they know a lot and are higher than other students. After entering the workplace, they do not respect other colleagues. There are also some young employees with little work experience who have done several projects with simple technical framework and feel their technical ability is very strong. They have the wrong idea that “development is only a few things”, and then despise daily work and do not obey the arrangement of leaders.
With the exception of a few extreme cases such as a bad natural disposition, most people don’t cooperate for a reason.
The above situations can be summed up for the following reasons:
- Personality cold outside hot inside
Many of the technical backmen the author has contacted are cold on the outside and hot on the inside. They are ready to help others, but because they are busy or too involved in their daily work, they do not have much energy to consider their attitude towards others, so they give people the illusion of indifference.
- conceit
There are a few skilled people who become conceited and look down on the rest of the company because of their ability to excel. In their opinion, all team members should finish the task easily, and they are too lazy to answer the questions they ask without technical content. Moreover, these people are technically oriented, and many executives are looked down upon by them for not being able to develop technology.
Similar to them, some young employees think their abilities are outstanding when they do two projects because of their limited experience and lack of exposure to complex scenes. Their performance is the same as above.
- Resentment at work
Do the same work, the evaluation of some high and some low, if you do not know to face up to their shortcomings, the low evaluation of the people will inevitably refuse to accept. Often, they feel underappreciated and resentful of the things around them.
People who have been happy at a company will usually take their last shift when they leave. Most disruptive employees are angry at work or with their team, which they let out just a few days before leaving.
Other common sources of resentment include unresolved work conflicts with other members of the team and a lack of focus on the individual.
How can the Scrum Master guide these issues?
The measures
A lot of people think that the Scrum Master’s job is to help the team conduct meetings, but this is a misunderstanding of the Scrum Master’s job. In addition to organizing meetings, the Scrum Master also helps the team remove obstacles and facilitate communication. The Essence of Scrum summarizes the responsibilities of a Scrum Master into six categories: Agile coach, servant leader, “umbrella”, “scavenger”, process authority, and “change agent”. As an “umbrella”, the Scrum Master should protect the team from any distractions, including intra – team conflicts, relationships, etc.
In agile development, the Scrum Master should help team members establish a common vision and collective values, help each member grow and realize their own value, and encourage mutual respect and trust. When confronted with the above problems, the Scrum Master can change the situation of the team by guiding the team to strengthen collaboration.
The Scrum Master can take the following steps to address the problems mentioned earlier.
Organize team building, close the distance between team members
Type cold on team members usually didn’t have a chance to communicate with other members, a regular time such as interval complete release plan or for two months, have a team building (hereinafter referred to as “party building”), party building can loosen body and mind, let the whole team league building itself is also a good way to reduce the distance between team members.
Team building usually plans a series of team sports: members participating in team building compete with each other as a unit, and each group member releases his energy to his heart’s content for the honor of the team.
Team building is a test of teamwork, and people who seem difficult to work with at work may be easy to work with in the game. If the collaboration is good, the experience can easily be carried over to work, pushing the team in a more positive direction and making the team more cohesive.
Let the prick know there’s someone out there
Confident people usually have an accurate assessment of their own abilities and know their limits; Conceited people, on the other hand, overestimate their own abilities and underestimate others. Conceit often stems from their limited cognition. Conceit usually thinks that their technical ability has reached the peak of their industry. If they are not much better than others, they can recognize the facts and adjust their mentality, as follows:
Let the prickly head work with the stronger person, on the one hand can realize their own shortcomings, on the other hand can improve their realm.
If it’s a young person who’s just started working, you’ll often find that older employees think differently, code differently, and have fewer bugs. The contrast between the two people is like Chen Kangsu in “Selling oil Weng” and selling oil Weng, “without him, only the hand is familiar”, the habit originates from the accumulation of years of work experience — through the pit more know how to avoid. The gap will make him realize his lack of ability and there are many aspects to improve, and it is also a good opportunity for young people to learn.
Working with people of comparable ability, technical backbones can dispel their ego by learning that they are not so much better than others and are not irreplaceable within the team.
If you don’t have someone stronger than a pain in the ass in the company, let them handle the harder work
A stronger man should accept a stronger challenge. Scrum Master can suggest tartar claimed more difficult work, rather than its good at work, such as to its service industry for the development of new technology optimization of existing products, or a series of tools to improve the efficiency of team work, Suggestions and say “do you think this job is difficult, how long can finish”, or “I’ve heard that XXX finished in a week, You should have no problem being so skilled.”
The project will benefit to a certain extent if the prickles are able to complete their work on time. If not, the prickle itself will have a sense of frustration — it turns out that he is not omnipotent, there is still a gap between himself and others, and the situation of conceit will also improve.
Listen to the voice of the head, patient counseling
We should find out the root cause of the resentment, and find a way to ease it.
Faced with the threat of leaving, the Scrum Master can assuage his resentment by praising his past contributions to the team. Although the partnership was coming to an end, Prickle had some feelings for the team, and the Scrum Master responded by responding to them and encouraging him to finish his last shift while maintaining his emotional stability.
Tangtou has no intention of leaving:
- If the Scrum Master knows the root cause of his grievance
Scrum masters can open up their minds by talking one-on-one. For example, you can cut in from the recent status, lead to the root cause (such as performance is not as good as others, promotion is not as fast as others), and then analyze the status of others, will be compared with others, and list the differences; The Scrum Master can give encouragement at the end, such as “If you can achieve the GOAL of XX, I think you can achieve better performance, and you are absolutely capable of achieving it”, so that the leader can understand the gap with others and also get recognition, and gain the motivation to move forward.
Tell a personal story about my first team in my career. Project manager A and technician B joined the team in the same year, and both made great contributions to the project. In terms of technology, A is inferior to B, but A’s rank is one level higher than B (rank directly affects the treatment). B is greatly dissatisfied with this, and is in opposition to A in every aspect of his work, which seriously affects the project delivery. After understanding the situation, the leader of the headquarters set a target for B and promoted B as long as B fulfilled the target. At last, B fulfilled the target and the leader fulfilled his promise and promoted B. As for B, his goal has been achieved and his working status has gradually become positive.
- If the Scrum Master does not understand the root cause of his grievance
The Scrum Master can also talk to the spanner alone. If you feel that it is not good to go straight to the topic, you can focus on it in your spare time, such as playing games together during lunch break. After establishing a certain social foundation, you can try to ask, and then gradually guide.
The Scrum Master can act as a conflict mediator if the offending negative emotion stems from a conflict that is not well resolved. The Scrum Master reexamines the conflict from an objective perspective, working with both sides of the conflict, and makes recommendations to resolve the conflict objectively.
In daily work, the Scrum Master should recognize, encourage and communicate with team members to create a relaxed and harmonious working atmosphere and avoid negative feelings from team members.
Post adjustment
If the thorn is not changed, the two sides will be consumed by each other will be a lose-lose situation.
It is also a common practice in enterprises to adjust their positions and let them choose what they want to do within the scope of their ability.
Refer to appendix
Kenneth S.Rubin: The Essence of Scrum. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press
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