As I coach more and more teams, I notice a pattern. Scrum masters who fear (or loath) conflict try to resolve discrepancies in estimates as quickly as possible. They will try to force a majority vote as consensus. Or worse, place the dissenter on the spot, somehow implying that they are holding the process up.
This creates a dangerous dynamic within the team. Conflict is seen as bad and to be avoided. The way to recognise this is when you hear a statement like: “I guess I could go down to a three”. The scrum master is missing the purpose of the meeting. The team is there to gain a common understanding of the work. When a team member capitulates, they’re robbing the team of an opportunity to really understand something. It makes the team as a whole, less effective.
It also makes the estimation meeting less representative of the team’s understanding, and as a result team members begin to see less value in it, resulting in greater skepticism in the process of estimation. Which sets up a vicious little circle.
The underlying problem here is the notion that dissension is a zero sum game. The notion that an argument has a winner and a loser means that people will sometimes refuse to participate. The culture we should be trying to create is that of strong opinions, weakly held. Argue until you’ve been convinced otherwise. Then gracefully move on to the next topic/item.
The scrum master’s role is to fascilitate the discussion, to make sure that it remains a robust discussion about the issue. More importantly, the scrum master should be coaching the team in why the estimation meeting is important and how to best use the time in those meetings. This comes down to understanding the principles and not executing a set of rote ceremonies.
I’m interested in how you prevent the more robust personalities from dominating/controlling the discussion? The argue until you’ve been convinced otherwise could easily become an argue until the less robust members give up – how do you tell this has happened and is it possible to stop it? I’m curious as I’ve seen this happen so often and wondered whether scrum is any less easy to be manipulated this way?
Scrum has a mechanism for this, it’s called a Scrum Master. The role of the Scrum Master is as master facilitator; critical to this are the skills to do this effectively (making sure minority voices are heard, that the same people don’t dominate etc.) and the other critical factor is a disengagement in the outcome. What I’ve seen a number of times with Scrum Master as team member is that they are invested in the outcome, not the process, so they are chasing towards the end.
The other pattern that is important to understand and confront is what Sam Kaner refers to in his book as the ‘groan zone’. This is an important part of the process towards consensus. The point where everyone is so annoyed with the place that we are as a group that we’ll take any suggestion as long as we move it forward (the point of capitulation) is the wrong time to make the decision.
The final point I would make is that consensus does not mean that everyone has to agree, all should be able to support a direction as an attempt to try something is usually what we should we be aiming for. This means that you’re entitled to your reservations provided you’re not sabotaging the attempt.
The whole thing rests on the skill of the facilitator, much like any meeting/discussion. The difference I guess is that Scrum understands that we need that person in that role.