Stop using the “A” words!

At a recent user group event (meetup.com/ignite-agility), I was humbled by the number of participants who mentioned that the best advice they received from me was to stop verbally throwing up Scrummy and Agile vocabulary on people. That advice does appear in “The Scrum Master Files” but I decided to post a few more thoughts about that here in the hopes of helping Scrum Masters and coaches.

It might sound strange – or even contradictory - coming from a Certified Scrum Trainer to stop using the scrum and agile vocabulary. When you are new to any “agile” method, Scrum in particular, yes, it is important to learn what the heck the terms and words mean. But think about how those meanings are conveyed to you. You do not mystically understand what a Product Owner is by someone saying Product Owner, Product Owner, Product Owner repeatedly to you. The educator uses different words to convey the meaning of what a Product Owner does and who that may be in your organization.

Coming out of a Certified ScrumMaster class or any kind of training about this agile stuff, I see newer Scrum Masters and coaches do a disservice to others in their organization who may not have had any education on Scrum or Agile yet. In their enthusiasm, or panic, they may say something like this in facilitating a Refinement conversation between stakeholders and the Product Owner: “I’m your Scrum Master. Jane here is the Product Owner. This is Product Goal Refinement. Jane, start us off.”

People may provide any number of reactions from bewilderment to defensiveness. 

Scrum Masters are guides, teachers, facilitators and coaches. A Certified ScrumMaster is capable of performing the translation of terms in their own head and serving others by making the conversation easier and this transition to working differently comfortable. 

What if that same Scrum Master in the scenario previously described went something like this: “Thank you all for joining us today. Jane has been chosen by our organization to see if we’re going to pursue a new idea that she’s going to talk to you about. She needs your questions and your ideas. Why am I here? To help each of you get a chance to be heard, to manage our time and prevent things from going down rabbit holes. But now I turn it over to Jane to share what she has so far.”

Not one scrummy word was needed to convey why the session was happening or the difference between the PO and SM roles.

How did I come to this revelation? By verbally throwing up every Agile and Scrummy word in my toolkit when I was a new Scrum Master. My First Attempts In Learning (FAIL) are why I wrote “The Scrum Master Files”. I’m seeing too many Scrum Masters or even people who see “Agile Coach” as some hierarchy above a Scrum Master do more damage to their organizations’ agility with all the mumbo jumbo when plain, simple words would advance the goal.

Try it today! When you’re tempted to use the “A” word or the “S” word, catch yourself and insert something simpler.