Are you a manager of Scrum Masters or Agile Coaches without experience on the job? This will help you support them better 🤝
Managing people can be hard when you don't have hands-on experience in their role. You won't be able to give them the mentoring as another Agile Coach, yet you can provide some golden nuggets to help them grow.
Here's a handful of things you can do.
THE BASICS 📖
Understand their role - take time to get to know the services they can offer, the day-to-day perils. Be curious and ask questions instead of making statements.
Be vocal about your needs and expectations like:
Why have they been hired?
How will you and the organisation know this role is successful?
How will you measure their work? (great to discuss together).
What are the company's business goals, and where does the product struggle? (or connect them to people who know).
Ask them how you can serve them so they can do their best work. This can include the below 👇🏻
SUPPORT 🙌🏼
Increase awareness of the role in the organisation among various stakeholders and teams. Be their ambassador so your employees are not anonymous by sharing:
Why are they here?
What services do they offer, and what problems can they solve?
What is expected, and how can others support their mission?
Help to promote their work in the organisation. That compliments raising awareness but is more about sharing success stories and building a brand. The role of a change agent might be less visible and could use a boost. It also shows others that change is possible.
Be their linchpin - make connections between people in the organisation to whom they don't have access or can connect faster through you. That said, don't become a bus factor. Animate instead of taking over the communication.
Show the progress they made individually, in the organisation or team thus far. It's sometimes hard to see the effects of own work over time. Help them tell better stories in the organisation and create space for them to be heard.
See them bigger than they are. That will enable them to grow, undertake new challenges, extend their comfort zone and feel valued. That breeds trust and boosts motivation.
Trust in what they are doing. Be curious, not judgemental. There are different ways to approach organisational change, building teams and enabling the creation of better products.
Connect with like-minded people and change agents. That will help create a network effect, resonate knowledge and help them to make more impact while not feeling alone.
Provide a safe space to vent and get up on the horse again. It's a harsh world out there for Scrum Masters, or Agile Coaches, and loneliness is ingrained in the job (same but different as Product Manager).
It is crucial to have somebody who understands or hears the challenges out with curiosity.
When shit hits the fan, be there for them. Ask what they expect after venting, and don't try to fix things when not asked.
Be open to suggestions and think, "ok, how can we make it happen, and what would that mean in practice?"
Use agility in your team - walk your talk, hold your reviews, make your work transparent. People will trust you more.
There are more things, yet the above helped me and the people I worked with make things happen. What's on your list?
PS. If you are recruiting Scrum Masters or Agile Coaches this article might come in handy 👇🏼
—
🎈Share this post if you think it can help a managers support their change agents better.