Frame agile as a cultural implementation: it has no beginning, middle or end. This is not a project to be managed, it is an ongoing implementation.
By creating an environment where vulnerability is encouraged, scrum masters decrease the possibility of an amygdala hi-jack:
Scrum masters need to model behaviour that they are looking for. Asking questions and being curious will encourage team members to speak up during scrum meetings.
Develop, document, and display vulnerable behavior/response pairings. Hold a formal discussion with your team to identify the vulnerable behaviors they believe will be crucial to success. Team members will most likely begin by identifying common behaviors like asking questions, giving feedback, or registering different points of view. Focus on one behavior during each scrum and practice cultural accountability.
An increased sense of status leads to higher functioning in the prefrontal cortex, which increases critical thinking, thereby leading to better solutions being presented in this environment:
In an environment where the work is framed as a learning problem as opposed to an execution problem, success of the project depends on hearing everybody’s best idea, and this can include more junior team members, increasing status and autonomy.
When behaviour practiced over a period of time, the hippocampus will embed this behaviour as normal and creating safety will become learned behaviour.
Now that you’ve jointly produced a list of vulnerable behavior/response pairings, pick one to practice during each sprint. When the team focuses on a specific behavior and response pattern, it provides a manageable scope for practice and activates peer-based cultural accountability. This could cause an overall increase in relatedness and could also increase overall autonomy.
Never undervalue the benefit of building relationships with your teammates as this increase genuine relatedness.
Formally evaluate the quality of the team’s dialogic process in the sprint retrospective. Make this review a standard part of the agenda. Further, seeing people is not the same as spending quality time with people.Keeping a hyper-focus on team progress without investing in team relationships often leads to burnout, a lack of trust, and miscommunication.
The Scrum Master can then talk to each team member one-on-one, or they can broach the topic in a retrospective.
We want to ensure that no behaviour triggers the fear response in the individual to ensure quality communication take place.
Tips for Agile Leaders and Scrum Masters
• Moving the team to a new location may reduce/eliminate fear, especially if the location is associated with a fear inducing memory. Changing the style of communication may allow others to be more vocal. Instead of asking the three questions at every standup, try “walking the board”.
• Reinforce the fact that it’s ok to make mistakes. Add information radiators where applicable (e.g. posters stating “Fail fast, Fail often”). This can impact on the feeling of autonomy.
• Having an open discussion when team members are removed from the team (i.e. explain ‘why’) as this will enhance overall certainty.
• Sending a clarifying email to the stakeholders.
• Suggesting a different perspective on a conference call (e.g. priority of the backlog).
• Soliciting feedback from a team member/Product Owner/Scrum Master.
• Admitting that the sprint goal won’t be met.
• Holding offsite retrospectives. People are much more willing to speak up when they’re physically out of the office.
• Identify where you’re at and add improvement items to the backlog
