How to Win Father of the Year

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I’m just going to assume all the people reading this are grown adults and have experienced that moment in their career (or job) where you’re being tasked with finding someone to lead your team.

You’re provided with a room full of people and still, you manage to find no one who would fit the bill. This shocks you. Why? Because all too often people say they have the “juice” to lead but when placed center stage they fold faster than origami paper.

Embarrassing I know; however, time is ticking, and your client isn’t going to wait for you to find the “right for right now” candidate. But then again, what would be the perfect candidate for this situation?

The Chosen One

So who is this person that the company is going to have to employ in order to run your band of misfits? Don’t look at me, it’s not me, although Z-daddy makes an excellent leader.

Quickly subscribe to join Zeroclay Nation, so you can join the one and become an army of none. Shameless plug-in aside, back to answering the question. Well like most creative, non-so-creative names in the IT world, they’re called Scrum Masters.

Scrum Masters, while the name sounds like an underground kink club, are accountable for helping their team succeed. They are responsible for managing the exchange of information between team members.

This is done as a team member or collaborator. Most scrum teams (I say most because working in teams with different people creates “experiences may vary situation”) can run themselves so having top-down management isn’t ideal for this band of misfits.

A Scrum Master often helps in groups or on a one-on-one basis (to all of you who thought of Hall and Oats, a big shout out to you, stay classic).

They may facilitate exercises, give guidance, or help people come to conclusions on their own. Scrum Masters are like having a coach that everyone on the team likes and can get along with and who doesn’t stare at you from around the corner while you’re taking a shower.

The Perfect Supervisor

Have you ever played the video game Bioshock? Your answer was no? I’m shocked. For those of you who have played you’ll know what I’m laying down and for those of you who don’t, let me explain.

Bioshock, in a nutshell, had an underwater city and within that city were these little girls with syringes who went around drawing what looked to be blood but wasn’t.

I’m not going to get into the whole details, just know every time you sighted a little girl, she wasn’t alone. There would be a giant known as “Big Daddy” walking and for the most part, protecting her. So long story short, don’t mess with the little girl or you would have more than a double barrel to worry about.

Anyway, back to the point, Scrum Masters in a way act as the Big Daddy to a scrum team. Scrum Daddies help their teams by coaching in self-management and cross-functionality, creating focus in providing high-value increments that meet what the client defines as done or better known as “the definition of done”.

Scrum Daddies in times of need will, motivate and remove any impediments to the team’s progress, and ensure all Scrum events taking place are positive, productive, and kept within the timeframe also called timebox.

Scrum Daddies also help product owners by facilitating stakeholder collaboration as requested or needed, leading, training, and coaching them in their adoption, and by finding out what exactly is expected and conveying that to the scrum team.

So you can think of Scrum Daddies are like having that cool boss you can “ascend to a certain level of awesome” with and can be a google translator between the team and product owner.

Scrum Daddies are important…right?

You may be thinking to yourself, “these guys sound nice but what makes them so important?” If you have ever worked or even played on a team, you’ll know that not everyone thinks the same.

Do you remember the days when you were in school, and the teacher instructed you to get up and go find a partner and it took the class forever for people to settle into their groups? Like you would have a group that already knew they were going to link up but to the other groups developing, the awkwardness and the petty (if your ex and her friends that made up most of the class) was real.

Then you would be instructed to figure out who was going to be the team leader or in my case “you seem smart enough and I have no clue as to what I’m doing, and I assume that you do”. This is a retrospective apology, to my old classmates, sorry, you let the eyeglasses and calm demeanor fool you.

After figuring out the leader you would quickly find that most if not all people couldn’t lead well. There are many elements that go into making a good leader. This is why Scrum Daddies are so important, a good Scrum Daddy (and I say good because I know there are bad ones out there) will do everything in their power to keep the team focused, motivated, and moving along.

You know it’s like having a father instead of seeing them only on the weekends, they live with you and you guys play catch in the yard. Trust me, I’m not emotionally broken.

More of a Father Figure

So do you want to become somebody’s Scrum Daddy? Do you think you have what it takes to protect your team of little ones? Good, in this field, having a degree would be nice but at last, you don’t need one.

Not to become a Scrum Master, instead, you’ll need to start building skills that will empower you to lead your team to the best of your ability. Developing problem-solving skills, adaptability, motivation, effective communication, and organization are going to be skills needed in this role.

Always a key thing to note is to never take sides or have any predisposition for someone’s opinion. Instead, Scrum Masters should serve as a mediator helping the parties reach a solution.

You could pick up some online courses which would help you gain a deeper understanding of what is expected in this role. Just remember when you are a leader, depending on who’s on your team, they’re all your children…you just don’t have to pay child support this go around.

Made it this far and found this to be entertaining? Then a big thanks to you and please show your support by cracking a like, scripting a comment, or plug-in to follow.

Would like to give sincere thanks to current followers and subscribers, your support and actions mean a lot and has a play in the creation of each script.

Do you think you have what it takes to be a Scrum Daddy or Momma?

Script a comment below about what you think your experience would be like.