The Real Job of a Scrum Master

0:00Welcome to the first skill of the PSM II, now called Advanced Course. I'm Bob Mailer. I am PSMA certified. In fact, I have multiple PMI and Scrum certs, and I only tell you that so you understand that I've been around, I've done a lot, I've earned some of the certs, and I've put a lot of the pieces together. So here we go. By the end of this skill, I want you to stop thinking of the Scrum Master as the person who facilitates Scrum events and start seeing them as a leader who shapes the environment where great Scrum can emerge. And why does it matter? Well, many Scrum Masters become highly proficient at facilitating Sprint planning and leading daily Scrums and organizing Sprint reviews and coaching teams through retrospectives. Those are valuable responsibilities, no doubt about it, but they only represent the visible side of the role.

0:58Experienced Scrum Masters understand something deeper. Teams don't operate in isolation. They exist within organizations filled with competing priorities and leadership expectations and cultural norms and technical constraints and human behavior. People, people, and more people. When a Scrum team struggles, the most important question isn't, what did the team do wrong? The most important question should be, what conditions led the team to this point?

1:30So throughout this course, we're going to learn to look beyond the Scrum events and begin recognizing the system that influences every Scrum team. That shift in perspective is what separates someone who understands Scrum from someone who can practice it at an advanced level. So let me lay the scenario for you. Throughout this course, we're going to use a single case study with my friends at PulsePoint Medical. Now they're made up, but it's good to stay with one company and follow them all the way through the process. I don't like jumping around.

2:05So welcome to PulsePoint Medical. Over the last two years, the company has expanded rapidly and what started as a single Scrum team has expanded into three cross-functional teams. They're responsible for different areas of the remote patient monitoring system. Think wearable devices for people with cardiac problems. That way they can notify emergency medical care very quickly. They can get help even faster. So growth has been exciting, but it's created new challenges.

2:39Sprint goals are actually being missed more often and developers receive competing priorities from multiple leaders. And now we have stakeholders bypassing the product owners to request work directly from the teams. Now, retrospectives are generating thoughtful improvement ideas, yet many of those problems are still there in the next sprint. Executive leadership has reached a grand conclusion. The teams need to do Scrum better. Well, here's the funny part, only it ain't so funny.

3:14You've just been assigned as the Scrum Master supporting these teams. So before recommending a single solution, you decide to understand what's really happening and that decision will define everything that happens after that. So here are the learning objectives. By the end of this skill, hopefully if I've done my job right, you'll be able to differentiate between Scrum facilitation and professional Scrum leadership. You'll be able to explain why experienced Scrum Masters focus on systems instead of isolated events. You'll recognize organizational influences on team performance. We're also going to introduce the Scrum Master lens, trademark pending, don't steal that, that one's mine, and apply it to everyday situations. We're going to distinguish between observable symptoms and underlying causes. And finally, we're going to prepare to analyze organizational systems as we move towards skill two. So every single skill in this course is going to lay the foundation for what follows. Hopefully by the end of it, you will have moved beyond understanding Scrum and understanding Scrum Master leadership. So here we go.

0:00Welcome to section one and let's talk about the Scrum Master that most people imagine. Let's begin with a simple question. What does a Scrum Master actually do? And if you ask that question in any organization, you're going to get some very familiar answers. What you're probably going to get is, well, they facilitate ceremonies and they remove impediments. They protect the team and coach and ensure that Scrum practices are being followed. They also track progress because the goal is to deliver value in every single sprint.

0:36And if everyone is saying that, it must be true, right? Maybe, maybe not. Let's find out. Let's wander over to the whiteboard and see what we can see. Maybe we'll see that. Maybe we'll see something different. So there is an expected behavior, work coordination, event facilitation, order maintenance, making sure everyone's not swinging wildly at everything and freaking out because something didn't go right. But what about the outcomes? Are they achieving their sprint goals? Do they collaborate well?

1:12Do they have a harmonious relationship, sometimes referred to as rapport and esprit de corps? I don't know. But when I think of work coordination and facilitation and maintaining order and removing impediments, that's Scrum at its most basic level. So that really doesn't do a lot for me. And why does this perception exist? Well, it exists because most people only observe Scrum Masters in meetings. They don't have any visibility to what's happening behind the scenes.

1:45They don't see the coaching. They don't see the conflict resolution that they help prevent and or then solve. They don't see the team development. They only show up at prescribed times, retrospectives, reviews, depending upon who the stakeholders are, and they see what they see. But they don't see what's happening in the back. And that's only part of the story. In fact, that's not even half the story. So Scrum events are simple. They're simply opportunities for transparency and inspection and adaption, also known as TIA. You probably remember that from PSM-1.

2:28But all of that does not guarantee continuous improvement. Or in this case, I have it down as Kaizen, continuous improvement in the form of small steps. Everyone prefers small steps because it's simply easier to deal with. And what about meaningful collaboration? Does facilitating those Scrum events actually equal meaningful collaboration, cooperation, commiseration? Probably not. And I would say most often, absolutely does not.

3:02Again, the basic level of Scrum is everything I'm talking about. It's the deeper stuff that you need to understand for the PSMA. And I'm going to tell you, I smoked the PSM-1 exam. The advanced test, a little more difficult because it focused on the mindset. And that's where I'm trying to take you. So busy teams may appear very productive. They have lots of activities on the board, and they may not be agile. Why? Because valuable outcomes are more important, are greater than more work. Nobody cares if you made 200 cold calls today, if you're in sales, did you book any meetings? Because if the answer is no, it sounds like it's just busy work and no one's interested in that. And then there's the operational cost.

3:56Sure, the Scrum Masters, they're doing his or her job. They're helping manage calendars, they're facilitating meetings, they're resolving interruptions, they're protecting the teams, they're reducing bottlenecks, all of that stuff. And if you look at the sum of all of those operational activities, does it equal more work or does it equal better outcomes? Does it equal better performing teams? And if you don't know the answers to those questions, it doesn't sound like we've crossed that line. So we need to listen before we solve.

4:33And experienced Scrum Masters are curious. They're curious about why something happened. Obviously, what happened is important, but it's the why that matters. And one of the things I'm fond of saying, and you can use this, is the difference between your problem and our problem is the why. And it's the same thing here. Why did this happen? Because if we don't understand why it happened, guess what? It'll just continue to happen. So now we're going to shift to the Scrum Master lens. We're going to shift from who did what to what conditions caused this. These may be part of the symptoms. That is likely causation. That is likely what allowed it to happen. And if we don't understand that, guess what? We're just going to be putting band-aids on scratches and not figuring out what caused those scratches in the first place. So this is a different journey, understanding how the organization works, understanding the culture, recognizing patterns. And it looks like there's my first misspelling. Recognizing patterns is

5:54really how we're going to help the team succeed. Well, that was amazing. So if you walked into PulsePoint tomorrow, what would you observe before offering your first recommendation? Take a moment to think about that. Not what you would change, not what you would fix. Simply, what would you want to understand first? That question may be the single biggest difference between an inexperienced Scrum Master and an experienced Scrum Master. So at the beginning of this section, I asked a simple question. What does a Scrum Master actually do? And hopefully your answer has already started to change. Yes, they facilitate events and they remove impediments and they coach teams. But those activities are only valuable when they contribute to something much larger, creating an environment where great Scrum can emerge. And before we can improve that environment, we have to learn how to see it. So in the next section, as we close this out, we'll begin exploring what experienced Scrum Masters actually do differently and why their influence often extends well beyond the boundaries of a single Scrum team.

0:00All right, welcome to section two. And we're gonna talk about what experienced Scrum Masters actually do. Now, if section one challenged what many people believe a Scrum Master does, this section begins answering a much more important question. What do experienced Scrum Masters actually spend their time doing? And the answer might surprise you. If you followed a Scrum Master around for a week, you'd certainly see some sprint events and coaching conversations and planning sessions and conversations with stakeholders.

0:34But if you looked a little closer, you'd notice something else going on. They're constantly observing, listening, connecting ideas and asking questions. They're helping others discover the answers instead of just providing them. The best Scrum Masters aren't measured by how many meetings they facilitate. They're measured by how often the team solves tomorrow's problems without needing them. And that requires a very different way of thinking.

1:04So throughout this section, we'll begin exploring the behaviors and the habits and the mindset that distinguishes experienced Scrum Masters from those who simply perform the role. There's a huge difference. So here we are at PulsePoint. You can see the Scrum Master. She's not engaging. She's standing there. She's looking, she's thinking. She's observing what people are doing. She's not running around, making sure they're talking. She's not asking them what they're talking about.

1:34She's doing what experienced Scrum Masters do. And in this case, she's looking at the system. What is going on in total? Not in silos, what is collectively happening and not just within the team. She's coaching. She's also removing impediments, but she's really strengthening relationships. She's also hyper-focused on the outcome. And yes, I know I'm using a crazy digital pen and I'm not trying to be super straight.

2:07I'm simply trying to show you how I see it so you can see it that way as well. So let's clear the board and let's wander over to the talking points and let's really dig into this. So they build environments, not dependencies. They help teams discover and develop the confidence to solve their own problems. But if they solve those problems for the team every single time, are they creating dependencies or are they creating environments where teams can thrive?

2:40I think you know the answer to that. And they coach more than they direct. Great Scrum Masters help people think more clearly. How do they do that? By asking better questions. And eons ago, when I was a field technician, I had a very gruff director of operations. Well, I didn't know everything because I was pretty young. And honestly, I don't know everything now. I'm just not as young. But if I had a problem, I would take it to him and he would listen and he wouldn't solve it for me.

3:13He started asking questions. And at first it annoyed me. He's asking me a question and not giving me the answer. And I have to stop and think about it. And I have to look at the pros and the cons, the wins and the losses. And finally, he would help me just talk my way to the appropriate solution. Did he give it to me? No, all he really did was ask better questions. And over time, and it didn't take much time for my maturity to kick in, I could understand what he was doing.

3:45And over time, I needed him less and less. So great scrum masters also observe before they intervene. They only do it when necessary based on the pattern. Now, if you see conflict between the same two developers over and over, that's obviously a pattern. At some point, if it continues, you must intervene. And I would offer that using the least amount of authority to get anything done is probably the way to go.

4:15But you don't do it for isolated events. That's a key difference here. And they develop people, not so much the processes. That's not their primary role. Better communications with the people will help the process. It is a by-product. It is the outcome. Stronger collaboration, better outcomes, helping them build and develop greater confidence. It's going to lead them to better outcomes. So the processes are there for us to work through, but who's working through them?

4:48The people. So what should we really be focused on? I think we know the answer to that one too. And then we're not just focused within the team. We are also focused beyond the team, outside the team. The team is working within the environment. We need to build relationships with the people who shape it. Other stakeholders, executives, customers, end users, whatever it is. Because if we're only focused within on the team, well, we're going to deal with whatever environment we get handed.

5:26And that's not what we're talking about here with an advanced, experienced Scrum Master. And we help others see the system. We don't figure it out and then keep it within and hold it and hoard it to ourselves. We share it. What's the phrase? Don't hide it, provide it. So we help them see the connections on how decisions are being made. They may be unhappy with the new direction a product owner is taking them. So we help them understand it. We help them adjust their behavior and see the behaviors around them.

5:59We're always focused on greater value. And that's truly the organizational outcome. The team is the train that's going to take us to that final station. But it's all about the tracks and it's all about the speed and it's all about the fuel and the system. I think you get my point. I'm not quite sure how I wandered into a train analogy but I kind of like it. And success is measured differently. We're talking about healthier conversations and stronger ownership of the problems and the plan which will lead to better collaboration.

6:35And these are just a few of the ways we can understand that we are being more successful. And finally, the goal is to become less necessary. I don't want them running to me right out of the gate like I'm a parent. I want them to be independent. Learn how to tie your shoes on your own. At the end of the day, a healthier scrum team is exhibiting behavior, better success metrics, better outcomes, better decision-making without the scrum master.

7:08That's the goal. I want to be less necessary. So as we close this out, imagine two scrum masters. One runs excellent meetings and the other develops teams that eventually no longer need excellent meetings to collaborate effectively. Both are valuable but one is creating lasting organizational capability. And as we continue through this course, you'll notice that our attention gradually shifts away from those scrum events towards the systems and the behaviors and the relationships that make those events meaningful.

7:44This is where advanced scrum really begins. Now, professional scrum masters certainly understand scrum but their greatest contribution isn't their knowledge of the framework. It's their ability to help people think differently, to collaborate more effectively and improve the environment in which people get work done. That requires one more critical skill. You must learn to recognize the difference between what is happening and why it's happening. And that's exactly where we're headed next.

0:00All right, we've made it to section three and we're going to learn to see the system because we all operate in the system whether we want to believe it or not. Think about it. Have you ever noticed how two people can observe the exact same situation and reach completely different conclusions? One person sees the missed sprint goal and concludes the team isn't working hard enough. Another one sees the sprint goal and starts asking questions about competing priorities and stakeholder interruptions and technical debt and organizational decision-making.

0:37You see my point? Neither person is looking at different facts. They're simply looking through different lenses. One sees isolated events and the other sees a connected system. The ability to recognize patterns instead of simply reacting to symptoms is one of the defining characteristics of experienced Scrum Masters. It's also one of the hardest skills to develop because our instincts naturally push us towards solving the first problem we can see.

1:07So in this section, we're going to slow down, we're going to become more curious, and we're going to begin learning how to read the organizational system before we try to change it. And you can see that's what our Scrum Master at PulsePoint is doing. She's looking at their top interruptions on this board over here. You have ad hoc requests, stakeholder escalations, priority changes, and other. Now, I don't know what other is, but if you look at those percentages, I see 42%, 28, and then an additional 30.

1:43It looks to me like she's broken it down, Jackie Brown, to four different interruptional areas. So with that said, let's move forward. I'm going to have to come off screen too because, you know, the whiteboard. So the symptoms rarely tell the whole story. They indicate something larger beneath the surface. Imagine you're looking at a pond and it's very serene and you see a ripple in the water. Do you immediately think, wow, why is it windy in just that one spot?

2:18Or do you maybe start to think, I wonder what's underneath the surface? And let's face it, the bigger the ripples should mean the bigger the fish. Patterns matter more than isolated events. Yes, we missed a sprint goal. That's terrible. But have we missed the last eight? No, we've actually gotten the last eight. We simply missed this one and they've never missed one before. Okay, it's possible I don't need to do anything at all, but repeated behaviors reveal improvement areas.

2:53We have to understand what happened and then why. If we can figure that out, we can actually do something about it. But to do that, we need to ask better questions. Better questions uncover insights. We need to understand the deeper issue. We need to understand the root causes. We need to understand a lot of things. And I'm going to come back on screen for just a moment and provide an interesting idea.

3:24Think about Pareto's Law. And if you aren't familiar with it, it basically says that 20% of your root causes result in 80% of your problems. And that's why you are always going after the root cause. Well, if we're implementing immediate action drills and dropping solutions on the symptoms that we see with the team, have we gotten to the root cause? Are we going to change anything? And the answer is no. That's because of Pareto's Law.

3:55And the only way to get to that 20% is to ask better questions. And this is difficult to develop, but it must be done. We also need to understand the feedback loop. And feedback is the breakfast of champions. I'm a big fan of talking about the Deming cycle. Plan, do, check, act. Pretty easy. You've probably seen it before, but it's pretty simple. When we plan, we come up with a plan before we do anything because we need something to guide us.

4:28We need to make sure we've captured all the steps involved. And there are tons of reasons to have a plan. Well, then we actually do the work. Along the way, we compare our outcome against the plan. We have the plan, we have the actual. That leads us to the variance. And if the variance is too good or too bad, well, that leads us to act. And the wheels on the bus simply go around and around. If the feedback loop is operating properly, then we should always be led to continuous improvement.

5:02If it's really bad, it'll be a large step. But if it's insignificant or maybe not as serious, it'll simply be a small step. And the sum of many small steps will take us many miles. That's a little weird, but I think you understand it. But what happens if your feedback loop is broken? Then your organization reinforces bad behavior. Now, a lot of it's probably good, but the bad stuff continues to happen because we haven't identified it.

5:34That's why it's important to truly understand the feedback loop. But that's just one of the variables involved. We also need to separate facts from fiction, or in this case, assumptions. An assumption is a belief you hold to be true or false in the absence of proof. I don't like assumptions because when assumptions turn out to be the opposite of what you thought they are, when they become facts and no longer assumptions, if they're different, you have now fallen victim to avoidable risk events most of the time.

6:07So we need evidence. That means objective data. And objective data will almost always lead you to better decisions. Personally, the best decisions are made from objective and subjective evidence. Surveys are an easy example of subjective feedback. So we have to look beyond the team. There are plenty of external influences that cause challenges. We have to identify them.

6:37Why would the problem always exist within the team? The people doing the work, really? Do you think the people doing the work want to create their own problems which cause their own impediments to getting work done? And the answer is sometimes. Sometimes that happens, but more often than not, it is the external factors that have the greatest impact on whatever is happening within the team. So improvement begins with understanding.

7:08We need to recognize when observation is greater than intervention. And it almost always starts with observation. If we don't understand what's happening, why are we going to intervene? Why are we going to get involved? And the answer is you absolutely should not. And finally, curiosity is a leadership skill. If we are certain all the time, it is largely based on biases and assumptions and opinions.

7:42But if we're curious, we will almost always take the time and lead ourselves to better decision-making. I know you understand the difference. It's the difference between fire-ready aim and aim-ready fire. Okay, one of the easiest mistakes for a scrum master to make is believing that every visible problem deserves an immediate solution. And sometimes the fastest way to improve performance is to slow down long enough to truly understand what's happening.

8:13Professional judgment begins with curiosity. And so hopefully, you've now begun to see organizations differently. Instead of isolated events, you're beginning to recognize relationships. Instead of individual problems, you're beginning to recognize systems. And that new perspective is going to prepare us for one of the most influential ideas in this course. Even great scrum teams operate within organizations that naturally pull them towards old and bad habits.

8:46So in the next section, we're going to explore that force, what we're going to call organizational gravity, and why even the most capable teams can struggle when the environment around them is working against them and working against agility.

0:00Welcome to section four and we're going to talk about organizational gravity. I want you to think about the last time you tried to change a habit. Maybe you wanted to exercise more consistently. Maybe you wanted to improve your diet or spend less time looking at your phone. Hopefully, you probably started with good intentions and maybe even had a solid plan. And then life happened and old routines crept back in and before long you found yourself doing what you have always been doing.

0:32Well, companies behave the same way. Even when leadership genuinely wants agility, existing structures and policies and incentives and reporting relationships and long-standing habits naturally pull people back towards familiar ways of working. I call this organizational gravity. It's an invisible force that explains why well-trained scrum teams can still struggle inside of organizations with the best of intentions.

1:02And if scrum masters only focus on the team, they'll continually treat the symptoms. When they begin understanding organizational gravity, they start addressing the environment that created those symptoms. And before we begin, you have to understand a couple of points. Gravity is absolutely real. Think of it as the company culture. Good, bad, indifferent, whatever it is. But you know it when you see it. And you especially know it when you feel it.

1:33When it has an impact on you. And it's invisible. You feel it. Just what I was saying. And it's very powerful, persistent, but it's overcomable. Think about any time you saw the astronauts go to the moon. You saw a movie. You saw a story. You read a book. They didn't just go to the moon, land on it, and then just come right back. Well, sometimes they did. But before they started landing on the moon, they went around it. They used the gravitational pull to slingshot around and come back to earth.

2:10They didn't just hit the afterburners all the way, or whatever they call it. I think you get my point. But it's very real. And if there's too much gravity, it pulls you in. If there's not enough, well, you're drifting off into space. I like that analogy. And I hope you do, too. Your role isn't to fight it. Your role is to figure out what it is, how strong the pull is, and use it to your advantage, which is really for the benefit of the team, which is really the benefit of the company.

2:43So here we go. Every organization has it. It influences decision-making and communications and priorities and expectations. Let's talk about expectations for just a moment. Let's say a company's work hours are 9 to 5, and there's a punch clock, and you punch in at 9.03. And the next thing you know, you're standing in front of your manager, and he's saying, you know, we have a very strict attendance policy here, and it's between 9 and 5.

3:14I noticed you checked in three minutes late. Would you like to explain that? That's organizational gravity. Needing five levels of decision-making is organizational gravity. Running around with your hair on fire all the times because you're far more reactive than proactive, that's organizational gravity. And the sum of it can be very powerful. Think about any relationship you had that was really, really good, all the little pieces that made it fantastic. And it can be professional or personal.

3:51And then think about a bad one. There were probably a lot of things that made it bad. That's just the example I'm going to use. And remember, we have good and bad relationships at work too. And then we have incentives. Incentives, aka rewards, shape behaviors. But what happens if someone pops in and says, hey, we got a hot item. I'd like to add it to this particular sprint. And if we can pull it off, we're going to get a $1,000 bonus per developer. Well, what happens if that incentive directly contradicts the scrum values or somehow interferes with transparency, inspection, and adaption? Well, when that happens, teams struggle. I like the cash like everyone else.

4:42But what happens when you're trying to balance the cash or some other reward with the scrum values or your own integrity or honesty or team collaboration, facilitation, cooperation? I think you get my point. Those incentives are part of organizational gravity and they can be good and bad. And then the structure influences how well we collaborate. If I have 14 people to report to, that's going to be a problem. If I need to get five levels of sign-off before I go outside for a smoke, and I don't smoke, that's an approval chain issue. And then what about silos?

5:24That's engineering's problem. That's the scrum team's problem. That's the PMO's problem. When we start thinking like that, we are thinking in silos. Again, it's never just one thing unless it's a really bad leader at the top. That almost never happens anymore. It is the sum of all the small things that are causing you problems. And the culture will outlast the process. I can change a process very quickly. But what about the culture? That takes a lot of time.

5:58If everyone is very suspicious or they're watching the punch clock to see if you are in on time, are you leaving early? Are we talking trash about each other? Do we have a huge disconnect between upper management and all of the frontline workers? Is there a huge disconnect between the executive team and the scrum team? I don't know. But all of that gets in the way of how we get work done. And if we don't understand it, we will simply try to work against it.

6:29And think about a time when you stood in the ocean and you pushed against those waves that were coming in. Did you really stop them? I don't think so. And then we have ideas that have been around forever, also known as legacy thinking. We've always done it this way. There's no sense trying to change it. Or someone says, well, the last three initiatives we've undertaken have all fallen apart. So why are we going to do it again? All of that is legacy thinking, which is why the scrum master needs to recognize that patience is greater than frustration. Now, this is the immediate feeling, but this is the one we need to understand. Patience. It takes time. If you change your workout routine from the afternoon to the early morning, do you think you're just going to spring up on day one and maintain that excitement through day 30, 60, 90, 120?

7:31Because the answer is probably not. It takes time. And that's why patience is important here. If we're going to improve anything, we cannot do it on our own. We need the organization's partnership, which is why we have organizational learning. Strong scrum masters don't just teach the team. They don't just facilitate better scrum practices there. They don't just work towards collaboration and cooperation within the team. Now, team development is great, but what happens if the team is really, really good and they can't go forward because of the organizational gravity? Well, the only way to combat that is to partner with the organization, come to some sort of an understanding, and work on improving that as well. But there's always change. Small changes, big changes, and all of that equals different levels of resistance. If you don't understand it, you will simply beat your head against it trying to overcome it through your sheer force of will. And that is the path of destruction. You will never do it. It's like trying to turn over an elephant. You can't do it. And organizational gravity is about change. That's going to generate

8:52some resistance. So, great teams need great environments. And if you don't improve the environment, you're not going to improve the team's velocity. You are not going to have better decision making. You are going to have continued problems. So, improving the environment is greater than improving the team. And if I had to start with one, I'd start with this one first. That enables the team. That's obviously the best place to start. Okay. So, let's take a moment. Let's take a pause for cause. Let's use our Scrum Master lens. If you removed every process problem tomorrow, what organizational habits would still remain? Because whatever remains is where experienced Scrum Masters begin. Not with the Scrum. It starts with the environment surrounding Scrum.

9:43So, one of the biggest mindset shifts in this course is realizing that organizations naturally behave exactly as they've been designed to behave. They were set up that way and so that's what they do. And when outcomes aren't what we hoped for, blaming people is the easiest part of it. Understanding the system that produced those outcomes is much harder. Fortunately, Scrum Masters don't need formal authority to begin influencing those systems. They need something more powerful. Trust. And that's where we're headed next.

0:00Welcome to Section 5, where we address leadership without authority. So let's start with a question I hear surprisingly often. How can a Scrum Master lead people they don't manage? And it's a fair question. Most organizations teach us that leadership comes with titles, reporting relationships, and decision-making authority. Well, Scrum turns much of that upside down. Scrum Masters rarely have formal authority over developers. They usually don't manage the product owners either.

0:31And if I'm being honest, they don't want to. They almost never direct executives. And yet, experienced Scrum Masters influence all of them. How? It's not by controlling people. It's by helping people make better decisions. And that's the difference between authority and influence. Authority can simply require compliance. But influence involves commitment. The best Scrum Masters develop influence so naturally that people don't even realize they're being coached at all.

1:02And it is a beauty to behold. So that's what this section is actually going to talk about. And we can see our Scrum Master at pulse point. She's standing there and she's watching. Is she listening? Is she building trust? Is she creating clarity? Is she empowering? Is she keeping them focused on the outcomes? And the answer is, it depends. It depends on what technique she's actually using. Is it authority or is it influence?

1:34I guess we're going to have to find out. But my choice is on whichever one builds the greatest trust. So all right, let me get off my soapbox and let's go forward. So leadership begins with credibility. People are not going to follow someone that they don't trust. Now you may have a title. You may have legitimate authority. It may be very formal. You may be Director Bob. But I may be more interested in following my senior developer because he or she has been around a long time and they have never led me astray.

2:08They have saved me from my own nonsense several times. So why would I rather follow them than the title? Well, we probably have trust and that's earned over time. That's not something you just show up with your title and get. You may get a different level of measured respect, but it will never achieve the level of someone who I trust. And then we ask questions. Well, better questions help me figure out what the problem is. They help me figure out how I might go forward.

2:40They help me figure out what the pitfalls are. It's really about self-discovery. But if you just tell me how to do it, well, you're really just trying to solve the problem at hand. And it's probably going to happen again. One of them will lead me to the cause. The other one is simply treating the symptoms in this particular moment. So coaching creates ownership. If I have buy-in, if I have participation, they are going to own it because it's their plan.

3:12It's their idea. It's their sprint goal. They've recognized the root cause of the problem and then they developed a solution out of it. Why wouldn't they own it? Think about a child and a toy. If you give them a toy that is already put together, they may mistreat it. They may abuse it. They may throw it down the steps. It was simply given to them complete. But then think about another toy they had to actually take the time to put together. They read the instructions. They laid out the pieces.

3:44They spent more time putting it together. Now, both of those toys may achieve the same result. This one's a car and this one's a car. But which one has greater ownership? And no, I'm not casually comparing scrum teams to children or calling them children. I'm simply providing an example that shows ownership over time. One of them is going to be more impactful. And I know you know that. So if we're going to build trust, we need to influence them.

4:15Influence starts with listening. We're not simply gathering information. We're seeking to understand what they're saying. And there are two kinds of people who listen. I've been both. One of them is listening as they're forming the answer based on what they hear. They're basically waiting to respond. That's one type of listener. But the better type is the person who's listening. They want to understand what's being said. What's the intent?

4:45What are the pattern words they see? What are the emotions they see on the speaker's face? They're not listening to respond. They're listening to understand. And then they're going to take the time to put all those pieces together and give the proper response. Do you think the speaker can see what you're doing? If you start talking as soon as they finish, they know which kind of listener you are. You know the difference. Well, they do too.

5:15So that's why it's harder to get people to trust you if you're always simply waiting to respond. And then we have to be neutral. I don't like taking sides because I always recognize that the truth is somewhere in the middle. There's what she said and there's what he said. Well, obviously both of them have their own internal bias. They want to be right. They want to win. They want the conflict decision to favor them. So I need to be neutral.

5:46And if I can maintain that neutrality over time and be seen as a trusted advisor instead of someone who's simply a side taker, I don't have another phrase for that, but you get the point. I can establish more trust over time. They might say, Bob is stern, but he's fair. As opposed to saying, don't go to Bob because whoever gets there first, that's who he's going to go with. That is not going to build trust. And that's obviously not going to lead to better outcomes. So we need the small wins.

6:18Kaizen, continuous improvement in the form of small steps. Well, I don't need big wins. Do you really think if I decide to get up every day at 5 a.m. and go to the gym, that I'm going to wait till day 60 to declare victory? Because there's a lot of space between day one and day 60. No. Okay, on day one, I got up at 5.15 and I got to the gym. Day two, I got up at five. Day three, I was tired. It was 5.30. And over time, I look at those small wins and it drives me towards the bigger win.

6:53And that's what we're talking about here. Obviously, we would love that influence to extend far beyond the team. I love coaching product owners. They are peers. Why wouldn't I? I coach them, they coach me. We share and share alike. We are both tied to success. Why wouldn't we help each other? But then you have other stakeholders, customers, end users, managers, executives. You can manage up. I've seen so many people think that they can't.

7:25They always think the team can be better. Well, guess what? If you always think the team is always the problem and the only place you can influence to make it better, you're simply going to burn them up. Because a candle that burns from both ends burns half as long. I know you understand that. And finally, leadership is never a one and done. I started out kind of rough as a leader. I got better over time. And you know what? It's like an elastic band.

7:57It is stretched and gotten good. And then it's constricted or retracted and gotten worse. Because I always try to think before I speak, but I don't always pull it off. I always try to view each situation as independent and separate, but I don't always pull it off. So it takes time, multiple conversations with multiple people in multiple situations, different decision outcomes. And it really is about relationship building. Ultimately, you are never trying to be right.

8:30You are simply trying to be better. Okay, so let's think back to the question that opened this section. How can someone lead without authority? And perhaps the better question is this. How much authority do you really need when people trust your judgment? Because that answer has shaped some of the most effective Scrum Masters I've ever worked with. By now, we've moved far beyond Scrum ceremonies and you can see it. We've explored organizations and systems and relationships and leadership and influence.

9:02You're beginning to see why advanced Scrum isn't simply deeper knowledge of the framework. It's deeper understanding of people. And in our final section, we're going to bring it all together. We're going to go back to pulse point with an entirely new perspective and discover just how much our thinking has already changed since the beginning of this skill.

0:00All right, we've made it to the final section, and we're going to look at Scrum through a new lens. So let's return to where we began. PulsePoint Medical hasn't changed. The three Scrum teams are still there, and leadership wants faster delivery, and the stakeholders are still interrupting the sprint work. Managers still have good intentions, and developers still want to build great products. On the surface, nothing is different, but something important has changed. You, when this skill began, you probably saw missed sprint goals and ineffective meetings and frustrated stakeholders and teams needing improvement. But now, hopefully, if I've done my job right, you're beginning to see something much larger. You're beginning to see the system, and that change in perspective is the first step towards becoming an advanced Scrum Master.

0:51So let's put that new perspective to work. So let's talk about the Scrum Master lens briefly. I'm talking about seeing the entire system beyond the team, and I'm focusing on the impact. If business value is always being measured, why would my focus shift from that balance with the team dynamic and the team's health? The only way to get better is to elevate people, empowering, and I need to be far more proactive than reactive, and I must stay aligned and keep us all aligned.

1:25Ultimately, your lens shapes everything. You want to see more, understand more, which will lead to enabling more and delivering more. When you change your perspective, you change the possibilities. So let's just stop right there, and let's move over to the whiteboard one more time. It all starts with looking beyond the obvious. The first explanation is rarely the complete story, so you have to be curious. Even if it sounds complete, someone tells you something that happened. Instead of immediately jumping to trying to solve it, you ask questions. Well, why do you think this happened? What could we have done better to avoid it? What do you think we should do now to make it better and fix it? What do you think we can do to make sure it doesn't happen again? And that list simply goes on and on. The obvious choice is to simply see it as a problem that needs to be solved right now, and you may very well do that, but it's not going to stop the problem from happening again, and it's certainly not going to develop the people that brought it to you. So every observation should raise a new question.

2:39So I need to look. I need to listen, and both of those together in the right balance will equal better questions, and if I ask better questions, I get more bits of information. That's going to lead to better understanding. All of this should lead me to better decisions, and hopefully if I stack enough better decisions together, then I have better outcomes, but the system is driving that behavior. Sure, I can totally work on my people and tell them you can't do that anymore, but the system is still dictating that they continue to do exactly what they're doing.

3:22So I need to figure out what those variables are, what those underlying currents are, if you will, and I need to work on changing those. You can only tell people to change so much in a system that does not allow them to change. Eventually, you burn them out, and they simply leave, or worse, they stay, and they simply don't care anymore. So we need to be aware, aware of what's happening and why it's happening, because that's the only way we can facilitate improvement. Who is causing it? Who's contributing to it? Who's reinforcing it? How do I change it? What are my options?

4:02And that list of questions simply goes on and on, but ultimately it comes down to who's viewing it. If I can get the executives to see how it's impacting us at our level, then maybe we can change it, but if they never view it differently from their level because they're not feeling the impact, is anything going to change? And the answer is likely not. It will simply maintain. So influence starts with the conversation. Let's talk, not listen to what I'm saying, not let's have a gripe session. It's let's have a conversation. Let's be objective. Let's try to remove the emotion, which is very, very difficult. If you can remove the emotion and the assumptions and the opinions and the bias and the history of pain that took us to this point, because it's probably been going on for a long time, we're creating opportunities together. I can give you the opportunity, but I can't force you to take it. But if I pull you in and pull you away from that organizational gravity or learn how to work within it, we're going to have better outcomes. And that's ultimately what we're looking for. We have to be curious. If we're not curious, we're simply

5:22making assumptions. We're holding on to beliefs that may or may not be true. We're listening to opinions. We're falling victim to our own internal and external biases. Now, confidence is valuable. I think I can fly. Can you though? Do you have wings? Are you a bird? Is it a parachute? Is it a wingsuit? Because if you don't have any of those, trust me, you can't fly. You can jump very high, but eventually gravity is going to take its toll on you. And there is an impact, just like the organizational gravity here. So confidence is great, but curiosity is better. Curiosity leads to better decisions. I know you know that. Professional growth is not a one and done. It never sleeps. Great Scrum Masters are lifelong students of people and processes and possibilities and simply trying to be better. It's never a one and done. Even when you retire, you simply shift your focus to being better in a different way. So be memorable. People don't remember what you say.

6:32They don't remember what you did. They don't remember a lot of things, but they definitely remember how you made them feel, how you made them think, and the better outcomes you led them to. Okay, let's wrap it up. So when we began this skill, the Scrum Master probably looked like someone who facilitated a bunch of meetings, removed impediments, and helped teams follow Scrum. And those responsibilities still matter, but hopefully they no longer define the role.

7:04Professional Scrum Masters shape environments. They develop people. They influence the organization. They recognize patterns, and they create opportunities for learning. Perhaps more importantly, they remain curious long after others believe they've found the answer. Hopefully, you've already begun that shift, because now it's time to sharpen that perspective even further.