hello everyone aren't you excited that you're almost coming to the end of 2021 i am so very
excited and i can't wait to see what 2022 is going to bring us so today we are going to be
addressing a very important topic yeah i always say that however everything we always talk about
here is very important you know in the sense of contributing to your agile journey so um the
thing that i wanted to talk about today is um you know according to the scrum guide it states that
the scrub master is accountable to the team the scrum master is accountable to the po and then the
scrum master is accountable to the organization now it is very easy to be able to carve out your
accountabilities as a scrub master to your team members your accountabilities and subscribers
to the po now where the challenge has always been is your accountability to the organization
so the ambiguity around here is for some reasons some scrum masters have been debating that um the
agile coach is accountable from the organizational standpoint now so where does your accountability
as a scrum master to the organization fit into this whole picture according to the scrum guide
now in today's video i'm just here to share my opinion on how the scrum master can be accountable
to the organization again as you may already know this is a very free platform where everyone can
share their opinion um regarding any topic around ajah and scrum but to this specific topic if you
have contributions to make which i would greatly appreciate use the comment section to drop your
thoughts so that again we all can continuously exchange knowledge and grow in this whole agile
career journey now let's dive straight into our topic how can you contribute to the organization
as a scrum master i'm just going to highlight some six key points that i have always done you
know as a scrum master that greatly contributes to the organization number one it's very simple
just do the right thing as a scrum master a great way to contribute to the organization
is to do the right thing that's a it's as simple as that so what i mean by doing the right thing is
every day you don't want to be the scrum master that ends up being the meeting facilitator
just facilitating the four scrum events and then that's a when you are not facilitating
any events you are just strolling around you're just you know not doing anything productive
that is not helpful if you want to be helpful to the organization and not just to your team
and again being helpful to the organization it intense help your team indirectly so
even when no one is watching just do the right thing and some of the some of the things that
i'm referring to as doing the right thing is make yourself valuable in terms of continuously look
for ways you can you know impact your team you can enhance your team's um knowledge on scrum
you can um shift your mindset continuously research learn and go extra even outside of
your organizations and look for ways that you can continuously impact the organization that's
what i mean by just do the right thing and you know another thing that i'm covering under this
doing the right thing heading is be ready be very comfortable in challenging the state of school
even if you are just that one person going right when everyone else is going left
be that one person as long as you know you're doing the right thing
stand for that right thing that's it for the first one secondly how does the scrum master contribute
to the organization my second point would be be open to transferring knowledge look for areas
look for gaps that you think knowledge transfer is needed and go ahead and transfer the knowledge
don't be stingy with knowledge you know so you've been able to help the organization understand
the empirical scrum it indirectly makes your life easy it will reduce resistance it will push
your agenda of helping even your team to become self-managing and self-organizing the impediments
that may come from leadership because of their lack of knowledge of the agile and scrum concepts
it will greatly reduce so look for areas where you think there is a huge gap you know from a
leadership perspective on the understanding of agile and scrum go ahead and train them go ahead
and train them so train them to understand agile and scrum so that they will in turn
give you the support that you need to be able to help your team better that's the second point
the third area where you may be accountable to the organization is contribute to communities
of practice in your organization if you have a center of excellence in your organization
contribute you see make sure you attend them and not just attending them just don't just go
attend them to be a spectator nobody wants a spectator around attend and contribute
look for ways share ideas things that you've learned in your whole journey that you think
that you know maybe um may positively add to the organization the communities of practice
go ahead and share it mustn't only be the positive things even the things that you're struggling with
you see so find that balance even the things that you're struggling with just you sharing these
things you're struggling with it may open the eyes of other um um teams other contributors to the
communities of practice and it may help them not make the same mistakes you see or they may even
give you with suggestions on how you can improve you see so be a contributor to the
communities of practice in your organization now even if you don't have any community of
practice in your organization you can go ahead and start one i have done that several times
i have been the founder of so many communities of practice in some of the organizations i've
worked for so be the the founder of a community of practicing organization that is how you are
accountable to your organization you see you're forming that that that front where together you
people can continuously thrive in your transition journey that's another way you can add to your
organization another way you can contribute to the organization is go out there step out of your
just being an ordinary scrum master comfort zone and go outside into coach leadership you know
sometimes leadership can be a pain you know on the neck especially when it comes to resistance
and that would definitely affect the the way your team functions especially middle management so if
you identify gaps coming from middle management in terms of maybe their lack of understanding of
the agile and scrum concepts maybe you think they need some coaching maybe you think they
need some mentoring you know go ahead step outside of your ordinary scrub my team scrum master zone
and connect with leadership to understand where you're coming from so that you can help close
that gap and it will in turn make your life easy you see even though i first want you to understand
that it's not all about you as a scrum master it's never about you but trust me as you contribute to
helping the organization helping your leadership it makes your own life easy
that's another way you can be a good contributor to your organization another way that you can be
accountable to the organization as a scrum master is to help facilitate organizational events
in my experience as a as an agile coach being a scrum master
there are always standards um workshop sessions that is designed to help push the agile transition
agenda in the organization so do not just leave this all to your agile coaches as an outdoor
coach what i would even do is i always make sure i reach out to the scrum masters to ask
for their help in facilitating some of these workshop sessions that to me i see that as one of
the ways for me to empower scrum masters to step out of their comfort zones so as a scrum master
always look for opportunities to help in this area to facilitate um workshop sessions that will help
bring the organization one step closer to their transition goal and not just workshop sessions
there are there are times that um retrospective organizational um retrospectives will always
happen so go out there support facilitate some of these retrospective sessions that will in turn
help the organization make better decisions so be part of these decision makers in the organization
that way you are not just helping the organization you're also putting yourself out there to be seen
for better opportunities so you see last but not the least be aware of your own blind spots that is
critical what i mean by be aware of your own blind spot is be coachable coaching starts with you
don't be that kind of a leader that you only want to coach other people but you're not open
to be coached i can tell you this nobody knows it all there is no one out there that knows it all
so as you're looking to transition your organization you're looking to helping your team
through coaching them mentoring them you have to be ready to be coached you see so
to successfully do that be aware of your blind spots constantly self retrospect and
look for the areas that you can continuously improve on and go out there and look for ways
to continuously improve on your own self if you have opportunity to be coached do not hesitate
be vulnerable be open to vulnerability seize that opportunity to be coached so that you
can better serve your organizations so i'm just gonna wrap it up today let's just end
here today i have so many other points but i cannot capture all of that in one video
i hope this video was helpful so these are some of the ways that you can continuously be valuable
or be accountable to your organization thank you so much for watching and hope to talk to you bye