Knight of the Mirrors

“Thou asked my name, Don Quixote, now I shall tell it. I am called the Knight of the Mirrors!”

— Man of La Mancha

... the Team finds that it can't see its own wayward practices, or suspects that an objective third-party perspective could be useful.

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It is difficult for a team to accurately gauge themselves, or to see areas for improvement.

Personal prejudices and blind spots make it nearly impossible for us to see our own shortcomings. Therefore, it is necessary that someone else see our faults and convey them to us.

However, an outside person observing a team is potentially problematic for two reasons. First, the person may not understand the context of the group, and may therefore give false information. Second, an outsider does not have the high level of trust of the team that is crucial for giving critical feedback.

Therefore:

The ScrumMaster acts as a mirror to the team, showing the team areas where they must improve, but also underscoring the team’s strengths.

The unique viewpoint of the ScrumMaster, as slightly “above” the fray in the trenches, makes it possible for the ScrumMaster to see things the development team may not. And in fact, the ScrumMaster has the responsibility to do so.

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A key point of this pattern is reflection: the ScrumMaster should show the team the things it is doing. Ideally, the team sees and understands, and makes any necessary adjustments to behavior without the ScrumMaster telling them what they should do. The reflection should be sufficiently revealing by itself. Of course, the ideal doesn't always happen, and the ScrumMaster may have given more explicit guidance. Much of this guidance should come in the form of Coaching (See Coach).

The ScrumMaster has several major tools that act as mirrors:

• • The ScrumMaster uses Visible Status to show the team where they are every day. The ScrumMaster ensures that the status is both visible and up to date every day.

  • The ScrumMaster uses the Daily Scrum to help team members report daily status. In particular, the ScrumMaster makes sure that the team members feel safe in reporting the truth.

  • The ScrumMaster ensures that the Sprint Retrospective is held, and usually leads the meeting to ensure that it is effective.

Note that reflecting the team's behavior is only half the job. The other half is knowing what to show the team. The ScrumMaster must collect and analyze data, and identify trends. A simple example is the team's velocity: the ScrumMaster tracks it and watches for upward or downward trends. Besides the obvious things, the ScrumMaster should be alert to more obscure trends that may indicate hidden problems. For example, the ScrumMaster may note that several people are always late to the Daily Scrum meetings. The ScrumMaster should investigate to find out whether it reflects a lack of commitment to Scrum, or whether there are more benign causes. Based on the reasons, the ScrumMaster can decide whether to reflect it to the entire team.

In addition, the ScrumMaster may use “mirrors” informally during the normal course of interaction with the team.

This pattern appears to be very similar to Coach, but they are actually different but highly complementary patterns. Knight of the Mirrors shows the team areas of improvement. Coach helps the team actually do the improvement. Thus the Knight of the Mirrors is a common predecessor to use of the Coach pattern.

Picture from: G.A. Harker, Knights of Mirrors.