Gereon Hermkes: So this is the Behendigkeit podcast number three with Sebastian Krempel and me Gereon Hermkes. Good evening Krempel.

Sebastian Krempel: Good evening.

The Miseducation of a Scrum Master
Gereon Hermkes: This episode is called The Miseducation of a Scrum Master. And so Krempel, you are a trained Scrum Master after your first Scrum Master class, your two-day introductory class, how well prepared did you feel to actually fill out the role of a Scrum Master?

Sebastian Krempel: Should I be honest? Of course. I mean, the course was very good, but to be honest, I’m not well prepared. You are just getting two days input, and then you have a, I don’t know, basic scrum knowledge, but I think there’s much more than this. So you need to be trained by another scrum coach or whatever who’s leading you maybe, because then you are learning. This input from the course is not that interesting in the end.

Gereon Hermkes: Yeah, and we have to say that both of us we have the same trainer and he’s actually quite a good trainer, so yeah, it’s not that we had a very bad trainer and that that would explain anything, but yeah, it’s true. The question is, I think we can all agree that there’s a lot of bad Scrum out there. Actually in Kanban there’s this expression of having Proto Kanban, right? It’s it’s not quite true Kanban, it’s just a precursor to that, it’s an evolutionary step or steps before that. And I’m sometimes tempted to say, to call Scrum bad scrum implementations Proto Scrum, but then again I wonder if that’s even possible in Scrum because if if you’re not doing it right, you’re not doing it right. And so I think that’s that’s a fact. But I, while I do see responsibilities in all of the roles, the Scrum Master to me he’s kind of like the originator of the whole scrum implementation, right? So he’s supposed to be the guardian of the scrum, he’s supposed to be able to coach the team and the Product Owner, at least as far as Scrum goes. So he is actually the the source origin of of everything that we’re doing. And but I do feel that a lot of Scrum Masters are failing their job, and so I wanted to talk a little bit about like what we see and maybe we can try to come up with some solutions.

So I think one part of the shortfall of a lot of Scrum Masters is what we talked about in an early episode that Scrum Masters don’t know how to scale. And, you know, they are just for a team, that’s their role, but if they don’t know what’s coming next, if they don’t know what’s expected of them in a scaled implementation, which almost all of them are today, they’re kind of lacking in that regard. So I think that’s one thing that even basic Scrum Master training with all its shortcomings, you know, it’s just two days of training and it’s already pretty full in terms of the curriculum being being stuffed, I think there still needs to be some input on like how do you actually scale, what is actually expected of you, because it might be you’re a beginner Scrum Master, you start with a new team but you are in a company that already has 500 teams, right? So you are in it from the first moment and nobody has time to wait for you to get the experience or to wait for you to get the budget to go to a, let’s say, Scrum at Scale class two years down the road, right? You have to be able to operate immediately.

But there’s also another aspect that I really realize more and more which is a lot of Scrum Masters have kind of forgotten their roots, and by roots I mean for example Lean principles, so truly understanding flow. So you can often see Scrum Masters that they might even know what they’re supposed to know after the Train the first training, but they don’t understand the history and and the basics for it, and then then they don’t have the mindset because for example they don’t pay attention to actually establishing flow right during the sprint. And so then it’s kind of hard to articulate but then they’re kind of missing the whole point of the system. And so this is something that I know Dr. Sutherland is putting a lot of emphasis on and I think that’s right to do because I think it’s just kind of fallen by the wayside and people are not paying enough attention to that anymore.

Sebastian Krempel: But it’s not the problem of the new guys, right? So if you’re a new guy in the company and you’ll get your first Scrum class, then you are enabled, yes, so you have basic Scrum, you can do a small Scrum team, yes, so you can drive it, okay. But the most companies are just pushing you into the direction that you have to scale, right? Yeah, that’s the problem. So the education is missing, that’s what what you say. So the education is missing and they are just doing it. Yeah, so maybe they read some stuff, but that’s it, yeah.

Gereon Hermkes: Yeah, and you’re right to point out, it in combination it becomes even worse, right? So they don’t know the the roots, they are not well grounded, if you if you’d like to look at a tree, but at the same time they’re supposed to to grow immensely, right? Yep, they are supposed to scale and that’s especially tricky if you don’t have the roots in what you’re actually doing.

Sebastian Krempel: So if you’re a lucky Scrum, new Scrum Master, then you have a leader, yes, maybe beside you, or you can just watch him to do some stuff, as me. Yes.

Gereon Hermkes: Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, and so I think that’s really the case, and you gotta have to have role models, people that are further along the way. And I think that’s one of the possible solutions, right? You don’t just want to have beginner Scrum Masters, it’s good to have a team coach for example there or maybe just a Scrum Master that’s a little bit ahead of you and that can give you some point just in different directions. Yeah, absolutely.

Issues with Training and Background
Gereon Hermkes: So one other symptom that I’m seeing and I’m not quite sure how prevalent it is, but I’ve actually experienced it and it really ticked me off. Sometimes Scrum trainers sell advanced topics which they might be especially good at as basic trainings. So for example, I’ve taken a Product Owner class with somebody that’s very well known in the industry, and I’m not going to name his name, and he’s known for a topic, and that topic, you know, if you just talk about it a little bit has its place in the first Product Owner training. But the problem becomes that if they make their topic take up so much space within that first training that the actual Scrum Basics are not being covered anymore. And so this was a situation where I actually paid a lot of money to go see this guy, and it was a beginning Product Owner class, and the training finished and we did all these advanced cool topics, but the guys that didn’t have the experience, didn’t have other training before, they just took their first class, they were supposed to be Product Owners next Monday and they didn’t know anything about Scrum, they just did this advanced topic which would be helpful if they did it like down the road one or two years, but they were just completely lacking the basic training. And I think part of the reason, and I don’t want to be too mean in that sense, I don’t know what the reason for that is, maybe it’s it’s not a negative one, but I kind of got the impression that this person, you know, advanced and not a lot of people are going to advanced classes, and so if you if you sell your stuff as a basic class, you actually make a lot more money, you get a lot more people, a lot more fame, but you’re not actually helping the people, right? It’s your topic is cool, we get that, it’s a big contribution to Scrum, but please train, do the basic trainings as basic trainings and not put too much stuff in it and then leave out the stuff that they actually need to know in order to do their job as a Product Owner.

Gereon Hermkes: Then there’s another aspect, and again I’m not sure if my perspective isn’t coloring that, but I think historically a lot of Scrum Masters used to be developers before. So, you know, you had the development teams and yeah, one guy didn’t run away quickly enough, I don’t know, maybe he he raises or her hand at the wrong moment, but you’re it and you’re the Scrum Master now. And so of course if you have developers, they have different attributes and and worldviews and then for example the people that are often becoming Scrum Masters now. So I see the trend that a lot of Scrum Masters today just like myself aren’t developers, right? They’re from the social sciences, so they have studied business, they have studied sociology, psychology, maybe even anthropology or archeology, etc. And they can be very good Scrum Masters, but at the same time they’ve never been trained in programming, right? And you of course don’t need to be good at that, but you, if at least if you’re doing Scrum in a software setting, you need to know the basics. And the fact of the matter is, most don’t, right? And so if they are lucky, they have someone like you who can then like teach me the Scrum Master the basics, so I get a better understanding, I have somebody that I can trust to always tell me the truth and to explain this stuff in a simple way. But most people don’t have that, and so I think the profile of the people that are becoming Scrum Masters has changed over time.

Sebastian Krempel: Yeah, sorry, but maybe you should should tell what I do or what we did together, yeah, so that I was a technical consultant for you and your Scrum team, yeah, and that I’m doing the magic, let’s say, for you.

Gereon Hermkes: Good point. Yeah, so you basically said it. Because of the setting, because of the context that we were in, we figured that it’s actually helpful to I wouldn’t say split the role but like to double staff it in a way that I was more like the the softer, the soft skill, almost coaching Scrum Master, and you were like the one that is actually executing this stuff. So you’re also trained as a Scrum Master, you know, right? So we haven’t followed the paperwork for your CSP but you’re a CSP and but you’re also Scrum developer and you’re actually the one that is more inward facing towards the team. And this is of course also not proper Scrum, right? But our context was a little bit special and I personally am a big fan of doubling positions, especially if it’s like a, I don’t want to say master apprentice but like I’m ahead of you in terms of Scrum, you’re ahead of me in terms of of technology. And I think it was very helpful for us both to learn from the other person and like be like, it’s it’s like a buddy system, right? So when I talk at least to Americans, I say you’re my buddy, as in buddy system like in the military when they pair people up and people are taking care of each other, and I think that was very valuable for both of us and yeah, that’s how we work together and that’s how we met.

Technical Background and Coaching
Gereon Hermkes: But it’s the case that today a lot of people that become Scrum Masters don’t have a technical background, and I think that a lot of the training also on the higher level levels is at least somewhat geared to taking former developers who have been maybe they have volunteered but maybe they have been thrust into this new position to help them out on all the soft skill stuff, right? And you’re already smiling, so I think that’s a good expression for it, but if you have somebody that has majored in Psychology, maybe they don’t need that much help for example with professional coaching, etc. Maybe they are already good in these areas. They have a different need, they need to understand the technology. And sure, you don’t need to dive deep into it. If you just stick with it and if you’re curious, you will learn a lot of stuff, but I still think that there’s a need to integrate some form of training about how do developers work, how do they think, what tools do they use? So you would actually be, so everyone can do a test. If you have a Scrum Master who has not been trained as a programmer, just ask them a little bit, you know, dig a little bit deeper about what does it actually mean to merge code, for example? You know, just ask a couple of simple questions and try to see if they’re faking it or if they actually understand what’s going on, because more often than not, they’re just faking it. Thank God socially so they know how to do it and that’s cool, they can do their job, but if they want to become really great Scrum Masters, they need to know the stuff. And if you’re the technical guy or a technical guy on the team, you would really be doing yourself and the whole team a favor by educating them, taking some time to teach them like you did with me. Okay.

There’s one last point that is always a little bit difficult for me to see, well, it’s not difficult for me to see, it’s I think it’s not really working. So in a Scrum Guide it says that the Scrum Master is supposed to coach the team and the Product Owner, but how are you actually going to do it if you don’t know what the Product Owner is doing, right? So this happens all the time. And sure, I, you know, if I’m the Scrum Master, most likely I’m the person with the most Scrum knowledge in the team, but the Product Owner side is a totally different ballgame, right? So the Scrum Basics are still the same, but the Product Owner uses completely different tools. How am I as a Scrum Master supposed to coach the Product Owner if I don’t even know what they’re doing? I don’t know how to do how to be a Product Owner, right? And so and we’ll also also always talking about being T-shaped people and for Scrum Master maybe that would be a nice addition to the to the main specialty to actually know how to do the PO work, especially if you’re supposed to coach the Product Owner.

And so one thing I really like with the Licensed Scrum Program that Dr. Sutherland has started, in full disclosure again, I’m a trainer of, is that you can actually instead of doing two cloth, two-day class for becoming Scrum Master, you can do a three-day class and also do the Product Owner stuff, right? So you do the basics of Scrum, which is the same for Product Owner as well as Scrum Master, then you do the second day for the Scrum Master, for example, and third day for the Product Owner. Are you going to be a great Product Owner through that? Probably not, because I think that’s not so much about training, that’s about your personality and about your experience that you have in the background, but I think it’s very helpful because like again, check with your Scrum Master and see if they have taken the Product Owner class and very few actually have, right? And so we actually in our team we took care, we had people do the scrum.org online test, read the book, etc., and I think that was a good first step, but in hindsight I think that was not nearly enough. I think every Scrum Master, especially in our context, they need to be trained as a Product Owner as well. So on the Scrum Master track they evolve to an advanced training and do scaling, etc., and they don’t need to do that on the Product Owner track, but they need to have the basic training, otherwise I think it’s very difficult to to coach the Product Owner. Yeah.

Complacency and Continuous Learning
Gereon Hermkes: So I think, so this is, let’s say, this is what I’m seeing right now in terms of problems, but at the same time I think the person that came up with the idea to have the Scrum Master training as a two-day training must have been a genius because it just opens up the door, right? Because it just gets people in. And for me, I I wasn’t, I was working in agile stuff, but had you told me I would have needed to do like a half year training, for example the waterfall PMI stuff, it’s a it’s a very tough train that you have to do, you have to read a lot of stuff, you have to memorize a lot of stuff, it’s really tricky to do. And if you compare that to Scrum, well you can just take a two-day class and you’re Scrum Master, I think that’s just really, really genius. But I think what kind of got lost a little bit is that this is just the beginning, right? So you’re supposed, that’s how you start, and then you go out, you experience it hopefully with somebody that is further ahead of you, and then you continue, learn more, take additional courses and and work on yourself. And I think that’s maybe it’s what I’m getting at is complacency for a lot of Scrum Masters who just do their first course and then kind of get stuck, well, yeah, maybe they read a book. And I think at least my expectation is that they keep on growing. And if you actually pay a lot of attention during the first class, you get everything. Maybe you review it later on, you can be a phenomenal Scrum Master, but more likely than not, you kind of need to be in this community, you need to have additional training to become a really great Scrum Master. So how do we get out of that? I I really don’t know, I really don’t have an answer.

I think so when Dr. Sutherland announced the Licensed Scrum Program and you can look up the video, we’ll link it in in the show notes, to me he seemed a little bit angry, and at first I didn’t quite understand it, and my reaction was, well, okay, what’s what’s going on there? And but as time went by I started to realize that this anger is really deserved because of how prevalent bad Scrum is. And I think training has its role. I don’t think we can blame training for everything. I think, you know, it’s kind of like it takes a village, right? So we have to have everything in place: the person needs to be the right person for the job, they have to good, have to go train, have to have good training, and not just once but repeatedly. Ideally, they have a mentor or a coach there, etc. etc. So it really takes a whole village approach to that. But at the same time, if the training has the problems that we talked about before, that they don’t actually address the basics, that and we had a good trainer, right, they’re also bad trainers out there, so then you know, the problems really compound. Yeah, then you’ll have bad Scrum. And I think his reaction is totally right because he was saying, well, if we don’t get this right, Scrum might be a fad. You know, I mean try to remember Six Sigma. Six Sigma is really cool and it was all the rage and nobody’s doing Six Sigma anymore. And we’re probably doing it injustice, and I’m sure we would just come interested in injustice if we would, you know, if we would continue on this path and, you know, the bad Scrum would just rule the world and at some point of time it would just die down and the next new new thing would come along.

Scrum Master Certification Track
Gereon Hermkes: And I actually think that having a track is really important. So have a rigorous basic training, do the other side as well, so if your Scrum Master, also do the Product Owner side, and even though, and actually do the other way around too, right? So even if you’re a Product Owner and it’s not your role to coach the Scrum Master, just take the Scrum Master class anyway. Your your perspective is just going to be that much bigger and better and broader. But I also think that we need to establish this this track of like having additional classes. And some of the organizations already have that, so for example Scrum Alliance has that and scrum.org as well, and I think that’s a very worthwhile idea, but I think it actually needs to go deeper. So maybe instead of having three levels, there need to be additional levels, but more importantly, I think we need to raise awareness of how important it is to actually take the advanced classes because very few people actually go up to CSP, right? And in my experience also employers they don’t really get the difference, right? So they they have this position open, they want to have a Scrum Master, and so everybody with, you know, everybody that just read a book and did the online scrum.org, uh, right? So I’ve taken a lot of scrum.org certificates and I I like that I can do them without taking the class, but at the same time that’s not the same as going, you know, to going to live trainings repeatedly or even online trainings where you’re actually interacting. And I think a lot of employers they just don’t realize it, right? They don’t know the value. And if you say you’re a CSP, they’ll say, well, that’s cool, but this from us is much cheaper, so I’ll just take the guy with two days of training, and it’s like, whoa, cool. Maybe there’s something that you’re not realizing here, and that then trickled trickles down because if your payment would be closely linked to having a CSP, for example, or something like on a higher level Scrum Master, then I think people would be very quick to get the additional training.

Sebastian Krempel: Yeah, it’s all about repeat, right? Yeah, so you have to, so it’s not that you just get training and then it’s done, so you have to repeat the stuff, so it’s it’s for everything what I did, it’s the same, so if you don’t do what you learn, then you just forget about this. Yes, right.

Gereon Hermkes: Yes, and I think yeah, sorry.

Sebastian Krempel: No, no.

Gereon Hermkes: And I think there is also the part of contextualizing it, right? So so if you just stop, if you’re starting out you go to a class and you might have the best friend and the curriculum might actually be really tight and really focused, you still can’t contextualize it, right? So yeah, you know, you just try to take it all in and but it’s like drinking water from a firehose, it’s just too much and you can’t keep track of everything and that’s totally fine. And hopefully you’re gonna review your course material sometimes later, but the reality is after you have had some exposure, then that’s the time to go to the next training because then you can contextualize everything much better.

And right now as you were talking about that, I just realized something additionally that people can do, and I’m sure nobody is going to do it, except you’re doing it, and I think it’s very smart. So if you are into martial arts, often when you when you’re on an advanced level you kind of, so you’re a black belt in something, let’s say karate or whatever, actually instead of just adding on the more advanced stuff, at some point of time you are either going to do it by yourself or like a grand master will push you towards it if you’re going to go back to the basics and you’re just going to rework everything and you’re going to start at the very bottom of the program and rework everything with the context you have now that you have actually achieved like a black belt status, right? And so we said before you are on a CSP level but in a couple of weeks you’re going to come to a Scrum Master class with me, right? And so you could just say, well, this is obviously waste, he is way beyond that, but yeah, actually digging deeper into the basics again, now that you have achieved this level, now that you have the experience, I think that’s a very smart move. And maybe you just take little bits out of it, but we’ll see, we can talk about it on the podcast like what your experience is, but I’m suspecting that this is really going to help you because now you you’re actually able to understand everything that’s in there.

Sebastian Krempel: Yep, yep, sure. Good, good. Do you have anything to add?

Gereon Hermkes: No, okay.

Sebastian Krempel: It’s all about repeat. Why is that coming? Put it on repeat. What’s the context of that one? The trainings of Scrum or something like this from your experience as a, what is it, these things?

Gereon Hermkes: So you’re referring to Wing Chun, yeah, which is a full style. And yes, so in a lot of martial arts, and we’re gonna have a lot of references to that, and and a lot of martial arts you do the repetitions, right, because you want to train your nervous system to have the reaction automatically, so you don’t have to think. If you’re in a stressful situation, maybe you’re attacked or you’re in a competition, you can’t take the time to think about it. So you have to train your nervous system, you have to get it in so that it feels naturally. And I think a lot of people like people always in the agile scene they always talk about Shu-Ha-Ri which is exactly that, but it kind of feels to me like everybody’s using the words but not a lot of people are doing it because right now you’ve gone through a Shu, you have gone through Ha, you’ve gone through Ri, and now you’re going back to Shu again, and that’s where the real magic is in my opinion. All right, so remember, nothing changes until you do, but the good news is you’re ready out.