Storytelling is one of the best known Leadership tool to motivate and inspire people, and I see often successful scrum masters using it with the teams.
Where do they take their stories? There are plenty of sources where you can find your stories: music, movies, games (football, basketball, etc.), folk stories, literature. Even kids bedtime stories can teach you so much about trust, friendship, support.
Here are some Movies that inspired me and I sometimes use them to argument some thoughts I like to transmit to the teams:
1. "12 Angry Men" - This great movie I saw plenty of times teaches you about how to change people's mindset.
Here we learn of a jury of 12 men as they deliberate the conviction or acquittal of a defendant on the basis of reasonable doubt. All but one are convinced the defendant is guilty, but after looking closer into evidence, one by one change their mind and decide for 'not guilty'.
Similar, in Agile, people see positive examples of teams trying out Agile/Scrum and change their mind.
2. "Nanny McPhee" - this movie is famous for the Nanny's quote which defines the role of the Scrum Master in the Team:
"There is something you should understand about the way I work. When you need me but do not want me, then I must stay. When you want me but no longer need me, then I have to go. It's rather sad, really, but there it is."
Onboarding and Offboarding of Scrum Masters should be something normal and give the opportunity for Scrum Masters to constantly support new teams and challenges.
3. "300" - This movie is about the heroes from Thermopylae and focuses on the idea of Team work and Team Spirit. Great movie to encourage a new team; some teams even take the power signal they use: Ahu! Ahu! Ahu! It is of course fun.
4. "Ghostbusters" - this movie was recommended in the Meta-Cast Podcast with Bob Galen and Josh Anderson. Josh explains a sequence from the movie where they speak about Failure and how it is ok to fail. He used this part to support a team that had constant velocity and was afraid to take more work in order not to fail*
5. "Babe" - great movie to be used for the OnBoarding of new colleagues. The movie describes the feelings that the little pig called Babe has when joining a new farm, the difficulties and challenges, as well as the support and love from the animals out there.
6. "Lord of the Rings. Brotherhood of the Ring" - Here you may encounter a perfect Team work, they have a common goal: to destroy the ring into the flames of mount Mordor, we identify the Product Owner: Frodo and the Scrum Master: Gandalf, he is not allowed to jump in and use his magic, but he can guide the team and the PO. The big team is grouped based on specialities: hobbits may be testers, humans may be the developers, elfs may be designers. They experiment, try out different ways to reach their goal, but finally it is a hard team work that brings them the success.
7. Karate Kid - This movie is famous in the Agile world as it helps us illustrate how self-organisation works and the shu-ha-ri stages.
8. Pinocchio - Jiminy Cricket
9.
I keep my list open, as I just started to think about this topic.
What about you? Which movie would you use with your teams and why?
Photo by Myke Simon on Unsplash