When I started as a Scrum Master I would kill for having an opportunity to shadow other Scrum Masters in their daily life so I could get a picture of what the role means. When I became the Scrum Master, there were only a few on our team, and nobody had additional capacity for me.
So later when I was asked if I would willing to be a shadowee for starting scrum masters with no experience, I immediately said “yes! of course!”.
This experience was going around 6 months and I was honoured to have two ladies as shadowers during this time. For the sake of this conversation, let’s call them Lucy and Kate.
So how it went?
Setting expectations
Before the real shadowing started, two things had happened.
We met and talked about:
- why shadowing a scrum master
- how long the shadowing should last
- what is the capacity dedicated to the shadowing
- what are expectations from this experience
- how are we going to communicate
- how I work and what is my schedule
- a brief introduction to my role and responsibilities
- a brief team and product introduction
- how to behave during scrum ceremonies
- how to handle all inputs, observations, and questions
When I had all the info, I went to my team and shared all the information I got from this kick-off. I asked the team if this would be something they are up to. They are amazing so they agreed!
Once all set, I invited Lucy to all our ceremonies, except retrospectives, at least from the beginning.
Technicalities
The shadowing started during the Pandemic so we started online. That was the first challenge we had to overcome.
In the team, we mainly use Slack for meetings. But access to Slack have only people working on that project. Therefore we had to find a way to make joining these online meetings possible. That means how to handle shadowing when I am out of the office or unable to join some sessions. In the end, we found the way. I was calling via Slack with the team, via Teams with Lucy, and sharing my screen so she could see what we were talking about.
That’s not all. Another important thing is headphones. When I used them for calls, Lucy was not able to hear people on the call. I can’t count how many times I forgot that I had my headphones on and she was not able to hear.
Why we did not do all these meetings via Teams, you may ask?. Well, if you know Slack, there are some features, like drawing, we use daily, which is impossible in Teams. We tried it, but it was not as effective as the screen sharing in Slack.
New shadowee
After some time and sync with the team, I brought another shadowee – Kate.
The good thing was that I still had the same capacity dedicated to shadowing. Only one thing changed. I had one more person in meetings and follow-up meetings.
We had those once per sprint and we were mainly talking about Lucy’s and Kate’s observations and questions. This dedicated time I consider the most valuable, not only for the ladies but also for me. As we kept them once per sprint, all inputs were still fresh. Thanks to their questions I got a new perspective on how I do my job, how I am perceived by others, and whether I am understandable. And this is crucial to me. The teams where I am Scrum Master understand why we do things in a certain way. And who can give you better feedback than two persons who just recently started with the Scrum framework?
What did ladies get from this? They got a better and deeper understanding of the Scrum framework, the role itself and the pros and cons in the daily life of the Scrum Master.
We went through some situations when I asked about their opinions and some of them helped me to solve some issues. I also let them conduct one of our Retrospectives. They got the on-hand experience to use it in their teams if needed and I got a chance to observe my team from a different perspective.
I included them in my administrative part of work, like the preparation of workshops, retrospectives, and inputs for discussions with Product Owners, handling impediments, and tasks for our Scrum Masters Chapter.
Retrospective
After the whole Shadowing experience, we met for our Retrospective. Technicalities like tools used for meetings, in-person sessions etc. need some fine-tuning and better set-up before starting. Lucy and Kate loved the on-hand experience of conducting retrospectives and follow-up discussions about every unclear detail. Overall great experience for both sides.
Conclusion
If you want to try this and get some people to shadow you, go for it! When I look back, it was hours of talks, explanations, discussions and brainstorming sessions. It is an enriching experience that can only help and move you forward. I cannot find one single reason why not to do it.
Before you jump in I strongly recommend considering how much time you can dedicate to this activity. Giving it 50% does not make sense. but if you are in for 110% it is not easy, but totally worth it!