J’ai trouvé le dernier billet de Mike Cohn fort intéressant car il adresse un enjeu avec lequel je suis constamment confronté sur le terrain.  Que faire si le Scrum Master est aussi en lien d’autorité avec son équipe ?

common advice in the Scrum community is that a team should never, ever report to their Scrum Master

Le piège le plus souvent cité est la possibilité que l’équipe ne soit pas très transparente envers son manager. De plus, en situation de stress, le manager se sentant imputable des résultats de l’équipe pourrait être tenté par le micromanagement. Ceci étant dit, qu’enseigne-t-on aux gestionnaires Agiles?  Quelle est la principale qualité du manager Agile?

Mener votre organisation comme si vous n’aviez aucune autorité » (Kan Higashi)

Une équipe a-t-elle  avantage à cacher de l’information à son manager?  Comment peut-il aider et soutenir l’équipe s’il n’a pas accès à la bonne information?

With the right manager in place as ScrumMaster, this programmer should be extremely willing to say he’s behind because he knows that manager-slash-ScrumMaster is going to be doubly incentivized to and capable of resolving that issue

If the right person is doing double duty as both ScrumMaster and a personnel manager, I have no problem with it.

Le rôle de Scrum Master aurait-il été créé pour camoufler une dysfonction de notre système de gestion traditionnel?  Est-ce qu’on a « tassé » les gestionnaires dans les transformations Agiles, ou est-ce qu’on les accompagne individuellement dans la transformation de leur style de leadership?  je crois qu’il faut faire la même chose avec les chefs d’équipe et chargés de projet, les aider à ajuster leurs postures pour supporter des équipes auto-organisées, les aider à devenir des leaders 3.0, les aider à devenir des Scrum Masters.

With the right person in the dual role of ScrumMaster and manager, it can work well. In an ideal world, I’d love to separate ScrumMastering from personnel management. But I rarely get to live in that ideal world.

And this is a compromise that works fine. Rather than banning everyone from being both ScrumMaster and manager, I’d rather allow it. And then only fill the position with the right people.

Après tout, ne valorisons-nous pas les individus davantage que le processus (et les descriptions de rôles qui viennent avec) ?

Blog original

When I first started doing Scrum, I was what we’d call today the team’s ScrumMaster and product owner. But we didn’t have those terms back then. And without terms or any clarity on the roles, it was easy for me to make the mistake of being both. I also did some programming. Oh, and I was also the vice president of the software department, so my team reported to me.

I want to address that last role because common advice in the Scrum community is that a team should never, ever report to their ScrumMaster. That is, I could have been the ScrumMaster or the VP — but I should not have been both at the same time to the same team. (And to be clear, everything I’ll write here is going to apply to any personnel manager, whether that’s a manager, director, vice president or even CEO.)

While I don’t think it’s desirable to have team members also have a reporting relationship to their ScrumMaster, I don’t think it is always horrible. Much depends on the person who is filling both roles. One of the common arguments against a manager as the team’s ScrumMaster is that team members will become reluctant to raise issues. For example, a programmer who is behind on a task will not be willing to say so in the daily scrum if his or her manager is also the ScrumMaster. That’s simply not true. With the right manager in place as ScrumMaster, this programmer should be extremely willing to say he’s behind because he knows that manager-slash-ScrumMaster is going to be doubly incentivized to and capable of resolving that issue. If the right person is doing double duty as both ScrumMaster and a personnel manager, I have no problem with it. If the wrong person is in place, there are lots of problems.

But it’s time to stop defining processes to prevent problems and create workarounds for the troublesome people in the organization. Instead, assume the right people are in place and then work to create a culture that puts the right people in place. With the right person in the dual role of ScrumMaster and manager, it can work well. In an ideal world, I’d love to separate ScrumMastering from personnel management. But I rarely get to live in that ideal world. And this is a compromise that works fine. Rather than banning everyone from being both ScrumMaster and manager, I’d rather allow it. And then only fill the position with the right people.Doing that will help your team succeed with agile.

Mike Cohn