Venkat is the Scrum Master of Warriors team. They have been together for over a year now and gone through over 25 Sprints. Their metrics during the last couple of months has been pretty impressive and almost stable too. Of late team seems to have lost some motivation as they have been hearing appreciations from all quarters and have not really looked at any improvements. No one seems to notice but for Venkat, who is a bit puzzled as to what else can he do. One thing he has noticed in the last few sprints is that there is hardly any conflict in the team and noticeably so during Sprint Planning.
He has read somewhere that if there is no conflict in a team, they are not really agile. He is thinking of being Scrum Master for another team, but feels there must be something he can do. Can you help?
Suggested Solution
Many teams face challenges when they reach such a stable phase. They stop innovating and their focus on continuous improvement reduces. Scrum Masters can help such teams to move upward in their Agile journey.
Venkat can use some techniques such as Kantar model wherein he can play various roles such as mover, oppose or follower apart from bystander in discussions based on situation and help the team to engage in healthy discussions. This would bring in new thoughts and options to explore. Challenging the team can help them to experiment and learn. Venkat can introduce some new interesting formats for Retrospectives to make it more engaging. Rotation of roles can also be tried to introduce new dynamics in the team. Team can be challenged to improve focusing on achieving better metrics. These are some ways Venkat can try with the team. SM needs to keep the team motivated too in order to try these things. That would mean Venkat needs to plan team collaboration activities which can also be fun.
These are some things I have tried with teams. I would welcome views and experiences from readers.
