[Scrum Master Training for Women] What I Learned with 9 Participants - The 3 Rs

The Beginning of the Journey

On June 13-15, 2022, a year-long effort finally came to fruition. The impact of this training, which was also the start of a new journey for me, was
nine women taking the next step forward in their organizations and operations.

These are brave women who took on the challenge of this training with great purpose and high expectations. I am so proud to be in this place with them.
The work environment for all of them is not an easy one.
They are all in the midst of trying to overcome adversity and struggling with how to organize their thoughts and communicate new ideas to others.

Such as below

---

Feeling uncomfortable with the way we have been working.
Want to sort out where it is coming from

I've been practicing Agile for a while and things keep going wrong
I want to go back to the basics and reassess the situation.

There is so much information in books and on the web that I have lost track of what is true.
I want to be able to organize and communicate in my own words.

I want to learn the essence of Agile and Scrum and think about how I can apply it in my own work.

---

I got the impression that the participants were constructive and focused on "what they want to do" in spite of their worries.
I am sure, or rather, certain, that these are the women leaders who will lead the organization and product development in the future.

About the training

The training was conducted 3 days online.
Even though it was online, we incorporated many mechanisms to open the participants' sensibilities.

For example

• Daily update of ground rules as a check-in

• Add an optional homework assignment for Photo-Jounaling at the end of each day, etc.

What is Increment?

The most impressive part of the training was the Scrum experience work in the middle of the session.
In this session, we deepened our thinking about Increment (verifiable deliverables).
How does Increment in Scrum differ from what we produce, and how we report it?
How do we behave and interact with each other bring empathy and leads to a high performing team?

Here are the some of Participants' insights:

• (Regarding the difference between a demo and a sprint review) The difference may appear in the way the development team members are interested in the product. It is more important to "make a good product together" with the sprint review participants (POs/stakeholders) and "know that we are in the boat together" than to make the demo more like a question-and-answer session.

• The end result was something exciting. Usually, we are working without resolve user problems and needs. We came to the conclusion that we should remove impediments to better goals.

• We have learned that a working product is the best material for finding issues and areas for improvement. I was able to experience that even though what we do is similar to our daily work, just by verifying and improving each sprint, we can make a big difference.

Roles and responsibilities - having a unique perspective on each ideal leadership

Our another deep dive was roles and responsibilities.
This is to show that the attitude of "roles but overlapping roles" has a significant impact on the outcome of product development.

We may be usually indifferent to the job titles (as structures) change our behavior and relationships.
When we have a title, others expect the person what is required by company policy. But the person falls under that expectation, others may have stress over the fact that they don't do it for recovering align with shared goal/vision.
I think this is one of the path that often leads to "indifference to the outcome".

The roles in the ScrumGuide are simple: product owner, scrum master, and developers.
Still, We may feel the same way as above sometimes.
That's why, instead of blindly following what is written in the Guide
Or why we need this role.
At the same time, we want to create an environment where it is easy to offer help when we need it and/or to naturally offer help, feedback, and requests to each other, even though it is natural to say that we will do our best to fulfill our daily responsibilities.
No one is perfect.

Their scrum work was quite thought-provoking. (The Co-Trainer, Women in Agile member's trick also worked well.)
I felt that the 3Rs - Respect, Request, and React - played an important item in the movement.

The 3 Rs

Respect: Trust each other and listen to each other
React: React to the situation around you and to the other person's words. Return feelings and words, and be willing to disagree.
Request: Tell the other person what you want to ask for

In this training, there was never quiet room.
The fundemental of the 3R's is a willingness to engage and intentional collaboration.

Finally.
Lastly, we dared to hold this training as a women-only event.
In conclusion, the comments received from the women were generally positive.
Whether the event was limited to women or not, if the participants were motivated to learn, and if they were inspired to actually take action in their work, that's all that matters.
However, in reality, I could understand once again that this kind of opportunity empowers women in product development.
(And I was reminded once again that there really are a lot of men in the industry!)

I would like to continue to create an environment where people can have the opportunity to learn and challenge themselves with vigor and well-sensitivity.

THANK YOU SO MUCH to all those who support for holding this training.
I would also like to thank all the organizations, managers, and other collaborators who supported the participants in taking the course!!