Hi, Johanna,

On 2/6/12 7:22 AM, Johanna Rothman wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm having an offline conversation with someone who has taken the CSM
> course. He is a project manager by training, not in software. He
> appears to be a facilitative, servant-leader project manager.
> However, his lack of software knowledge is making it difficult for
> him to be an effective Scrum Master in these ways:
>
> 1. He does not understand the stories, so he does know when a story
> is too big, so he feels as if he is not adding value during any part
> of the planning or the iteration.
>
> 2. He does not know the subject matter domain, and it's fairly
> complex, so he does not understand the technical conversations. He
> does not understand the tradeoffs: "Should we have a picture of the
> architecture as the output of the sprint, as part of our definition
> of done?" (I told him the answer was yes :-) It's a distributed
> system.)
>
> 3. He feels that all he does is shuttle questions back and forth
> between the product owner and the team. I suggested that he bring the
> product owner to the team.
>
> I see many problems, including the triangulation problem in #3. I
> suspect that the team and the product owner, perhaps unwittingly, are
> taking advantange of the person with the least knowledge in the
> situation. This person is new to Scrum, new to the organization, and
> new to software.
>
> Do others of you see this, putting a person with the least capability
> into the position as a Scrum Master? Is this a unique situation?
>
> I am not asking for help with the problems 1-3. I know how to solve
> problems 1-3, and if my colleague wants help with problems 1-3 I will
> offer help. I am asking about the situation: a Scrum Master with no
> knowledge of software expecting/expected to facilitate a team. That
> is the troubling situation that I see that I want help from this
> community.

In the "old days," people used to debate whether a manager needed to
know the work they were managing. This is a similar question, and I
think many of the principles that applied to that situation apply to
this one.

The first principle that I would apply is the "rule of three." Right now
the question is posed as "Does the SM need to understand the technology
and domain to be effective, or is ignorance of these things OK?" There
is a third possibility, that the SM needs to have enough understanding
to participate in discussions to the extent of being able to ask good
questions.

As a coach, I've often helped teams whose technology and business domain
were unknown to me. I ask questions that give me a "big picture block
diagram" understanding. This lets me ask better questions, and gives me
a conceptual framework to support learning more detail in certain areas
as I go along.

Sometimes, of course, it leads me astray and gives me a false
impression. That's OK because I'm asking questions, not giving answers.

- George

--
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* George Dinwiddie * http://blog.gdinwiddie.com
Software Development http://www.idiacomputing.com
Consultant and Coach http://www.agilemaryland.org
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