FACILITATIONTECHNIQUES FOR

EFFECTIVE SCRUMMASTERS

ABOUT US

Marcos Garrido

Rafael Sabbagh

UNDERSTANDING THE FACILITADOR'S

ROLE

Goal: analyse, discuss and define the facilitator's role.

Each group must fill the flipchart, covering the following four quadrants:

IS

ISN'T

DOES

DOESN'T

Time: 8 minutes

EXERCISE - GROUP DISCUSSION

FACILITATOR’S ROLE

"Facilitation is a process in which a person whose selection is acceptable to all members of the group, is substantively neutral, and has no substantive decision-making authority diagnoses and intervenes to help a group improve how it identifies and solves problems and makes decisions, to increase the group’s effectiveness.“

Roger Schwartz

SCRUMMASTER AS A FACILITATOR

SCRUMMASTER AS A FACILITATOR

SCRUMMASTER FACILITATOR

S"mulates  team's  autonomy

S"mulates  team's  effec"veness

Creates  visibility  to  team's  problems

Guides  the  team  to  improve  their  processes

Does  not  influence  team’s  decisions

Does  not  represent/manage  the  team

EXERCISES

SIMULATIONS

• Your group is a Scrum Team;

• Each participant will receive a specific set of instructions to follow;

• Don’t show your instructions to anyone!

SIMULATION 01

SIMULATION 01 - INSTRUCTIONS

Setup:

• Your group must define who will facilitate the session;

• The facilitator’s goal is to help the team to solve their problem in an effective way;

• Don’t forget your instructions;

• The following session is a Sprint Retrospective;

• Time: 6 minutes

SIMULATION 01 - BRIEFING!

• This is a Sprint Retrospective meeting;

• Dev Team didn’t meet the Sprint Goal;

• Dev Team members struggled with a lot of questions about the product;

• A new dev was hired, but he felt lost throughout the Sprint;

• Product Owner didn’t show up throughout the Sprint, but he was very upset because team didn’t meet the Sprint Goal.

SIMULATION 01 DEBRIEFING

DYSFUNCTIONAL BEHAVIORS

DYSFUNCTIONAL BEHAVIORS

• Behaving in a way to - intentionally or unintentionally - express discontent with:

!• the subject of the discussion; • the pace of the session; • other external factors.

DYSFUNCIONAL BEHAVIOR

Arriving  late,  leaving  early

Silence,  lack  of  par"cipa"on

Folded  arms,  facing  door  or  windows

Side  conversa"ons

Doing  other  work  in  session

Nega"ve  physical  reac"on  to  a  discussion

audible  sighs  of  displeasure

Nega"ve  comments  about  a  par"cipant

Verbal  aGack  directed  to  a  par"cipant

Leaving  the  room  in  disgust

Physically  aGack  someone

Degree  of  the  Dysfunc;on

Severity  of  th

e  Disrup

;on

TOP 7 DYSFUNCTIONS

• The Dominator: has all the answers

• The Invisible Man: no one knows he’s there

• The Multitasker: doing something else

• The Tangent Talker: any but the main subject

• The Joker: draws all the attention to himself

• The Attacker: everything is personal

• The Fence Sitter: goes with the flow

TOP 7 DYSFUNCTIONS

Group Discussion:

• each group selects a dysfunction;

• as a facilitator, what actions/steps would you take to prevent and/or deal with the dysfunction?

TOP 7 DYSFUNCTIONS

• The Dominator: has all the answers

• The Invisible Man: no one knows he’s there

• The Multitasker: doing something else

• The Tangent Talker: any but the main subject

• The Joker: draws all the attention to himself

• The Attacker: everything is personal

• The Fence Sitter: goes with the flow

TOP 7 DYSFUNCTIONS

SIMULATION 02

DINÂMICA 02 - INSTRUÇÕES

Setup:

• Each group must define a new facilitator;

• The facilitator’s goal is to help the team achieve consensus in an effective way;

• Forget your previous instructions - Get new ones!

• The following session is a Budget Meeting;

• Time: 6 minutes

SIMULATION 02 - BRIEFING

The Dev Team's got a limited budget to invest on an action plan to improve its own knowledge.

There are many options. Here’s a few suggestions:

- technical trainings; - Agile conferences; - buy a new tool; !Team members: choose an option and try to convince others

Facilitator: do your job :-)

SIMULATION 02 DEBRIEFING

REACTING Q U E S T I O N S

REACTING QUESTIONS

Michael Wilkinson

REACTING QUESTIONS

Michael Wilkinson

SIMULATION 03

SIMULATION 03 - BRIEFINGProblem: The marketing campaign management system

• No reports module

• New campaigns created: requests for follow up reports accumulate

• Every new request = unplanned and urgent work for the Dev Team to manually generate the report

!

Dev Team met to resolve the problem. But no consensus on which solution to choose.

Two possible solutions…

SIMULATION 03 - BRIEFING

Option A Option B

Details Keep the manual reporting process (by scripts)

Build a new plataform to support and deliver reports

automatically

Advantages

Small adjustments in existing scripts are made

and a new report is created in 30 minutes

Ceases once and for all the unplanned urgent tasks that disrupt the Dev Team's

work

DisadvantagesGenerates unplanned and

urgent work for the Dev Team

The team estimated the work needed to create the

reporta module in 2 months

SIMULATION 03 DEBRIEFING

CONSENSUS B U I L D I N G

CONSENSUS

Everyone believes this decision is the best option among others

WHAT CONSENSUS REALLY IS

Ok, it’s not my first option, but I can live with that!

I’ll support it.

DISAGREEMENT LEVELSLEVEL  3  

Outside  factors  (personal  issues  -­‐  past  history)  Possible  solu"on:  call  for  a  break  and  talk  to  the  people  involved.  

LEVEL  2  They  have  different  values  or  experiences  

Possible  solu"on:  make  sure  everyone’s  on  the  same  page

LEVEL  1  They  are  not  listening  to  each  other  

Possible  solu"on:  address  the  dysfunc"onal  behaviors

TECHNIQUES

- Majority voting / Dot voting;

- Buy a decision;

- Planning Poker / Five Fingers;

- Strengths and Weaknesses;

mor

e di

scus

sion

No discussions = poorer solutions (and poorer support)

WRAPPING UP

Let's review the Facilitator role

•mgarrido@k21.com.br • rsabbagh@k21.com.br

THANKS!