Last week, Genesis hosted an Agile Auckland meetup with the subject of Growing Our Own Scrum Masters. Although Sam, Bhargavi, Felix and Zara were very comprehensive and thoroughly described the great experience of Genesis, this post will not talk about a unique approach that Genesis selected for hiring scrum masters. Or even about the importance of self-awareness that I wrote about in a previous article and self-management; however, Felix Berghoefer and Zara Macnab showed well that they have a high ability in this regard. Instead, I intend to address an important and exciting topic left unsaid in this meeting, and even though it contained all the talk of the meeting, which is Creativity.

If you are interested in learning more about the Genesis approach, I recommend reading the “Grow your own scrum master” article by Matt George.

What is Creativity?

Per Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, Creativity (noun) is “​the use of skill and imagination to produce something new or to produce art”. In other words, Creativity is a fact in which something novel and valuable is produced.

Creativity, the most valuable trait for Scrum Master

Traits are what gives us identity. Human traits are divided into two categories: acquired and attributive. Some human acquired characteristics can be developed and changed over time, and some cannot. Some attributes, such as adaptation and respect for others, can grow and change with training.  On the other hand, although Creativity and passion are also acquired, it is not impossible to change and expand them, but it is challenging.

Per Scrum Guide 2020, Scrum is founded on empiricism and lean thinking. Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from experience and making decisions based on what is observed. So, Scrum Master needs to be creative for running ceremonies and workshops to lead, train, and coach the organization in its Scrum adoption. The key point here is that Scrum is a framework and does not provide processes, so you will have to develop your strategies. Humans have an unpredictable nature with the power of thinking and decision making. Therefore, they cannot be treated as a piece of software or a tool. For this reason, the importance of Creativity becomes more apparent here.

The Scrum Guide now uses the term self-managing to emphasize that Scrum Team included Scrum Master choose who, how and what to work. So, we can assume that the Scrum Team are also self-directed too. It is important to note that self-managed teams mainly use self-organization to complete their assignments, whereas self-directed teams often use self-organization to shape the team. Per facts and figures conducted by Cox, B. F. (2002), A significant moderate positive correlation was found between self-directed and Creativity.

Conclusion

What I saw in Genesis was a collection of creative people (at least in the Agile team) who were able to come up with a complete concept of self-managing and self-directing with Creativity.

Although there is no denying Felix and Zara‘s good abilities, who overcame all the challenges ahead with their Creativity and hard works, Genesis demonstrate a new way to employ that isn’t conventional.

References:

• https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/creativity#:~:text=creativity-,noun,new%20or%20to%20produce%20art
• https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html
• Cox, B. F. (2002). The relationship between Creativity and self-directed learning among adult community college students.
• The Featured image is under Creative Commons license (https://pxhere.com/en/photo/736147?utm_content=shareClip&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pxhere)