A question came up this week that seems simple on the surface but got interesting as we started to unpack it. The question was “does a mature scrum team need a facilitator for their daily scrum?”
Side note: I want to point out that while it’s phrased as being Scrum specific, this is equally applicable to a kanban team.
My immediate answer was yes, but it requires some context to understand why.
The daily scrum is without a doubt, the simplest of all the scrum meetings, and yet it’s one that’s frequently done very poorly. The question was specifically about a “mature” scrum team though, so let’s assume that they know how to do this meeting well.
What would this meeting look like if it didn’t need facilitation?
People would show up at the appointed time, they’d look at the board and decide which was the most important item. Then someone who knew about that item would talk about it and when they were finished, the team would move on to the next most important item and talk about that. When all the items had been discussed, the meeting would disperse. Nobody would have needed to be prompted. Nobody would have needed to be reminded to share the screen. Nobody would have talked too long, or drifted off topic. Any one of those things would have required facilitation to get back on track, and we’re talking about the case where a facilitator isn’t needed.
Is this nirvana even possible? Sure, I’ve seen teams do this for a couple of days, where they stay really focused and keep each other accountable. Then they get tired or distracted and start to let things slide. The key is that although it’s possible for a short time, it doesn’t last.
That’s why we need facilitation. There needs to be someone, or a couple of someones, to keep everyone on track, to move things along when they start to stall.
Does this imply that we need someone with the title of facilitator? No. When there is no designated leader, a natural leader will emerge from the group, and that person will either start facilitating themselves or will ask someone else to do it. This is normal team dynamics.
Interestingly, even when there is a designated leader, a natural leader will often emerge anyway, and sometimes that person does a better job than the person with the official title.
So back to “does a mature team need a facilitator?”, yes, although that person doesn’t have to have the title of facilitator. If we don’t have any facilitation at all, the meeting will very quickly lose any effectiveness that it once had.
A related question is “does it always have to be the same facilitator?” and that’s a resounding no. In fact, I recommend rotating facilitators, at least for the daily scrum, through all of that meetings participants. It’s been my experience that when everyone has a turn being that facilitator, the team takes the entire meeting far more seriously, and consequently does a much better job of it.