How to bring to the surface dysfunction in a scrum master cop

Question

I am a new scrum master in an organisation which has many other permanent and contract scrum masters.

I am in an odd and never before experienced predicament where my team is actually very mature in agile and scrum, it’s principles and practices but the scrum master cop is massively dysfunctional.

The perm scrum masters sit in a room lambasting the engineering management and the senior leader and the company in general constantly. They seem frustrated and unhappy and over all very negative. They also very combative and any suggestion I make is shot down.

Answer 1

That's something I have seen a lot. It happens when the dust settles and the teams are grown up and everything is save and sound. And even the most performing team needs to be evolved and facilitated and is going through changes constantly - but this is taken care of in half the workday. And now you have a bunch of Scrum Masters that feel redundant and blatant. And this leads to boredom and finally resignation.

In my eyes there's an easy way to avoid this scenario: every Scrum Master handles two teams. This gives you enough occupation to not try to create issues out of the blue.

Also the organization can help a lot through adding structures. Because a Scrum Master is spending a lot of time with facilitating and motivating and evolving and supporting others. But in the end of the day there is nobody that is facilitating and motivating and evolving and supporting the Scrum Master. An Agile Center that is actively taking care of the Scrum Masters can work miracles here. Give them career opportunities, organize speeches for them, don't let them alone.