Why are we here?
Last week I had a short discussion with some fellows, one of the interesting topics was “Human Resources”, and most of them had an issue with how to align Scrum with HR department:
- Most of the concerns we discussed: Scrum is applied and the team starts to perform/collaborate well but when Annual Review comes Scrum team is broken. While Scrum is about team success and collaboration, where “our goal” is more important than “my goal”. But current Tracking Performance is based more on the individual.
- Team members start to become concerned about how they could be assessed? And how about their career path?
- They have personal KPIs and focus on finishing that first, before the goal of the team. If not they will get a bad review this year.
Hold Back! Do we have any gaps here?
Sounds like the Scrum team and organization level need to be aligned? Look at the table below for some example indicators you need to list out and address any gaps with current HR policy.
| Job descriptions | Focused on Individual skill but not Teamwork | Focus more on teamwork |
| Compensation schemes | Individual over Teamwork | More teamwork |
| Individual career paths | Individual | More teamwork |
| Performance evaluations | Individual KPIs | More teamwork |
Usually, organizations focus more on individuals than teamwork. This leads people to focus more on “My work” than “Our Work”.
How and What you should do?
As a Scrum Master, helping the team understand Scrum and maximize the value of Scrum is important, but caring only about the team level is not enough. He/ She needs to serve the organization level, where there are many indicators or stakeholders that can be an impediment.
- Leading and coaching the organization in its Scrum adoption;
- Planning Scrum implementations within the organization;
– Scrum Guide
As the Scrum Guide says, the Scrum Master serves the Organization level as well, so you should educate the HR department and join with them to change the process through their approval, and this is an ongoing process to inspect and adapt. Below is something you need to take into account to align with the way Scrum is adopted within your Organization:
- How to focus more on Teamwork factors than individual factors? Why?
- Who will be line manager of Scrum team member? Why?
- When should annual review happen? Why?
- How is the career path aligned with Scrum? (more focus on flattening while removing titles in the team, so team members will be concerned about their career path? How do we build good career path for the individual but also raise up teamwork?)
- How does a Developer with 1 year of experience compare with one with 10+ years; are they the same in the team? (I will go into more detail in another post)
Besides, you need to educate the HR department by sharing or asking them to join part of your training with the team, and support them if they can use Scrum for internal HR projects/works.
More understanding of Scrum values in your organization leads to more success being shown.
Conclusion
Trying to apply Scrum without serving at the organizational level will lead to many impediments. It’s one of the most important things you need to care about from the beginning when you start applying Scrum to the team.
In another post, I will go into more detail on “How to build a Career Path while you apply Scrum”.
NOTE: Updated to follow scrum guide 2020
