I am in Business for over 30 or nearly 25 years now, depending on when to start counting. I made first money on IT-related services back in the 80ies. I started my first “real” Business with employees and all that stuff back in the 90ies.

Over time, accumulated revenues I generated, sum up into a substantial amount of €. Very few of this Euros I spent wisely, most of them I spent on bare living and gaining certain experiences. But every Euro and D-Mark I spent, I used rationally and with intention.

I studied law by interest and got fascinated. It took 20 years from start up to working and get paid in a Business Environment where that really helps.

I have seen myself always as a practicing philosopher. Therefore, I called myself being a consultant for hire.
But, to be honest, I was rarely never paid for advice. I was always and I am still paid to (co-)create defined and certain delivery items.
It were BTO-computers after comprehensive consulting of the customer, implemented into a new or existing environment.
It was speeches regarding the current and upcoming “hot shit” of Microsoft’s Productivity Infrastructure.
It was and still is concept documents as a base for implementation of certain technologies.
In the end, it was always IT, somehow.

I made all my orders different from what others did. I watched what they did and always stated, that this is “not enough”, when I started to involve myself. “That can be done better.” My driving intention was and is: insufficient coverage of needs in what is available from other sources.

There are two exceptions: working as speaker and working as a Scrum Master.
My driving intention there is “me too”. And these two role models are the ones I love the most.

The happy moments in my Business-Life are those, were my personal love met other people’s needs. These are the moments, where I am paid for what I love. This is a certain kind of greatness, I always long for.

/the basics

My orders always arise from situations where others are not able to or not willing to do on their self. Orders can be “dirty jobs” or building up ability. Where is the difference?

The “dirty jobs” are those which do not fit into well-defined patterns of process. They are somehow “off-standard”. I like them. They fire up hero-culture. Someone has to do …, You know. Great for the “Ego”.

But those, which are most sustainable are these, where I enable others to perform great. These, in my case, are speeches and Scrum Master jobs. I love them.

From my experience, there are three stages of sustainability in enablement.

/consultancy

In real consultancy, others need Your advice.

For a specific reason, they cannot decide on their self.
This is often caused by too much involvement, paired with workload up to maximum.
No judgement. People tend to go to the maximum. Only human. But rarely wise to do so.

Consultancy helps for the moment. But it keeps the client dependent. Great Business Model for those who do Consultancy.
Not my cup of tea.

/Scrum Master

The Scrum Master is the facilitator for people to do great. There are tons of resources at Your hand that point out what the Scrum Masters role is to be.
So, I concentrate on the essence of this role: the Scrum Master focusses on delivery of value.

Interesting are also those aspects, the Scrum Master is not – the Anti-Patterns that shape the role from outside.

/no “Feelgood-Manager”

People do work, even when they feel not well by doing it. This is a certain aspect of social behavior. They do it, because someone needs to do it by their understanding. They sub-ordinate their personal goals, intentions, and feelings under the (often only believed) needs of the organization. People are great in that. That makes us co-operate under bad and worst conditions.

Do we perform better under best conditions? No!
In worst cases, demands rise without performance rising in the same amount. No good idea, at all.

But “feeling bad” is an important indicator, that needs to be noticed!

/no “Scrum Mum”

People tend to help, wherever they can. Question is, what helps?

Some Scrum Masters tend to solve issues that need to be solved by the team. By solving it for them, these people prevent the team from building up competence in helping their selves out.

The hard thing is to tell, where this thin red line runs.
From my perspective one indicator is the number of times, a task needs to be done by one person.
Ordering of a machine in a huge company is nothing, a developer should do so often.
So, nice impediment to outsource external (to a Scrum Master or PMO otherwise).

Setting up a development environment is a quite personal thing. Nothing a Scrum Master should do for every Team Member.

But, there should be also guidelines to feed the Continuous Integration Platform. This is the basis to the everyday work of a Team Member. Also, nothing a Scrum Master should do for every Team Member.
But, he or she should insist on that there is a CI environment, guidelines are documented, understood and practiced everyday by every contributing Team Member.

/no “Principle Developer”

Some requests obviously target on recruiting a “Principle Developer” for the role of the Scrum Master.
It disqualifies the request by doing so, because requesters (and their originating organization) did not understood what a Scrum Master is and does.

Question is: does the addressee accept the challenge to develop this environment from Tribal Leadership-Stage 3 to at least stage 4?

Answer: depends on the market.
To be precise: on the workload of the addressee. Auto-Selection. Stupid.

/”agile Coach”

I use this term in inverted commas because of its imprecision.

It is not the “agility of the coach” that is really requested – it is “coaching on agility”.
But, at least in Germany, it is the search term, orders are generated from.

There are lots of environments that need and long to be agile, but cannot do Scrum for certain reasons.

What do they search for?
They cannot really utilize a Scrum Master, because they do not face so much uncertainty (anymore or not yet).
But, nevertheless, they need a person responsible for coaching the co-workers performing with each other in greatness.

Very often, not a Team is needed to do the job. In a more mature level of a project, some kind of mixed approach is needed.
You task down what is already known and offer the workpieces to the number of co-workers You deal with.
And, there are some parts which contain the “real uncertainty”. That needs a real Team dealing with it.

This approach is often called Scrumban.
Tasks, You just need to get done are performed using the Kanban approach.
Others that contain certain need of interaction – to handle complexity and uncertainty – need to be performed by a real Team.
That is, where Scrum resides.

In the most recent stage of maturity, this is done in Mob Programming – or Mob Development outside IT-context.

But, if You do not face uncertainty at all?
You do not need Scrum and therefore, You do not need a Scrum Master, at all.

You need a person that guides through processes, enables people to decide, identifying what should be improved, knows the stuff, knows the mechanics, knows the principles and knows how to implement to perform great.

In the end, a coach is needed to moderate and facilitate implementation of ability to perform great.
A servant leader is needed. That is what coaches and coaching leaders do instead of Managers.

/conclusion

Money is always paid for something other people need – or at least belief to need until they got it. You are not paid for what You love.

The great moments in Business-Life occur, when Your love and other people’s needs come together in a certain timeframe.
But, be careful, this too will pass.

Good news: now You know, You can actively work with and on it.

Climb up the Leadership Ladder: Consultant > Facilitator > Coach

/etc

You can shop “me” and my products here.

Or, You can just contact me and report on what You feel or belief to need. I am pretty sure, I can help. Maybe, for no charge at all.
I love to be helpful.

/famous last words

Life runs in circles. Some are smaller, some are bigger.
In the end, there is no end – only another beginning.

“Enjoy, and share if You like.”
“Feel free to make life great!”

“Likes” are welcome. Comments are appreciated.