New Scrum Masters: Facilitate Everything From Day One

I've been reading a lot lately about how the Scrum Masters are not supposed to facilitate the Team's meetings, plan them in the agenda etc. and I want to give a (maybe unpopular) advice to the starting Scrum Masters :

Do exactly the opposite 👉 Facilitate ALL the meetings.

You join a Scrum Team with the intention to coach it in delivering value on a regular basis and getting feedback quickly.

So why would you tackle your first days as an "Observe - Plan - Deliver" approach, a sequential way of working that will only bring value (and give you feedback) after a few days or even weeks ?

Bringing value to the team from your Day 1 (or 2, allez 😉) will bring feedback quicker and the value you instantly bring will strengthen the trust between you and the Scrum Team in the very first days already.

If you have time to prepare upfront and if you know just a little bit what kind of people you will be working with, just prepare a kickass and well structured Retrospective for example. When I started 3 years ago, the day started at 9.00 and I facilitated my first Retro at 10.30. It undoubtfully helped quickly creating a bond with the team and get instant feedback by lunchtime. This is a picture from that very first Retro and even if the visual skills were not yet fully there, the experience was amazing and it was the perfect way to start my Scrum Master journey.

So walk the talk, show the Courage mentioned in the Scrum Values and deliver that added value your Scrum Team is expecting from you 💪

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