I’ve observed for several months now, everywhere I turn, developers, builders, people of code, who are turning towards facilitation, who wish to become scrummasters. This intrigues me. Is it a way to flee their own profession? Is it a real calling?

Being a facilitator is not a solution of convenience

I imagine that for some it’s a way of playing the art of escape. Not feeling comfortable, not well in their role as coder, as developer, they eye the position of scrummaster, of facilitator. If we look carefully around coders, it’s one of the alternative paths available to them. Just as some used to become project managers before, the easiest path, at least the closest one, that allows them to completely change professions is today also that of scrummaster, of facilitator.

I imagine these people want to change professions for good reasons, in any case because they don’t feel good about it, in their work. If this is not the case, I warn them: as with project managers before (…even if the facilitator role has little to do with the project manager role), they risk disenchantment. And so do we, unfortunately.

First, being a facilitator, scrummaster, is not simpler, nor harder, than being a developer, than being a coder. To those who think it’s just about organizing meetings, I predict a future identical to those who think coding is churning out lines: not exciting. Everything depends on what you project into your profession, but doing it well always requires real commitment. So if it’s not a calling, a desire, you won’t find rest, and unfortunately you risk not being helpful to others.

The coder imagines that it’s easy to run a meeting, while the facilitator thinks it’s easy to put on headphones and quietly spend the day in front of their code (and probably their Facebook or GitLab pages). Both are probably mistaken.

Facilitating is not restful

End of June, a full-day workshop with a group. Our relationships are already well established, and we’re approaching the end of the year’s sessions. I decide to propose an election without candidates so that some take on the role of facilitator (as with all elections without candidates, no one is compelled if they are elected) and take my place for the rest. One person is appointed, I’m going to accompany them that day, they tell me in the afternoon: “We’re delighted to be elected, we become disillusioned when we have to facilitate.”

Neutrality is not restful. Constant interactions are not restful. It’s fascinating, but you have to love it. The soft sciences are wearing because it’s difficult to quantify their results, it’s not a code compilation that works or doesn’t. And just because it’s not quantifiable doesn’t mean you won’t feel a sense of failure or frustration. Neutrality is not without flavor, fortunately.

Facilitating is different

Soft sciences, hard sciences, old debate, and not necessarily easy terminology. Some say exact sciences, and sciences… ? Some speak of gentle sciences. No matter, but by switching from developer, coder, to facilitator, coach, we change worlds and postures. It’s not simpler or harder, it’s very different. Here too, you need to know how to question your nature, prefer the complex, the empirical, to the complicated, the expertise. Even if in the end I think that all natures can find their place in coaching, each with their own style, question yourself on this point.

A promotion?

I hope you don’t see this as a promotion. Changing to earn more? First, it’s not proven that it will bring you more (and less and less in France where we’ve finally understood that we must pay the great technicians), and above all it would indicate that you show little interest in your work since your choice is primarily driven by something other than the intrinsic nature of your profession.

Facilitator is not a rung in the hierarchy either. Especially since today facilitators, coaches, tend to flatten this hierarchy in their approaches (liberated company, agility, holacracy, sociocracy, gothamocracy, etc.).

The important thing is to find meaning

The first liberation begins with oneself. The important thing is to find meaning in what we do. We must respect ourselves, project ourselves: seek a sense of control, progress, working for something that transcends us, benefit from belonging to a community.

Like each of my children’s teachers, I hope they’re in their place by calling, by desire, by meaning, and not that they were attracted by the sirens of a lifetime job in the public service they thought was easy.

The allegory of the stonemason

Three stonemasons are shaping, almost side by side, a stone.

The first stonemason, sitting on his chair, works his stone almost mechanically and when asked what he’s doing, it’s with a somewhat bewildered look that he replies that he’s cutting a stone. Not far from him, a second stonemason performs the same work, with the same tools and the same technique, but in a slightly more methodical way. When asked what he’s doing, he calmly explains that he’s cutting a stone to build a wall. A few meters away, a third stonemason conscientiously works his raw material with an almost religious respect. He has exactly the same tools and the same technique as the other two stonemasons but what makes him different is the delicacy with which he cuts his stone as if it were a diamond. And when asked what he’s doing, he replies with a broad smile: “I’m building a cathedral.”

This allegory is very well known, but I took the formulation from Emeline Pasquier.

We can change our own profession

To those who think that the meaning of their action is in facilitation, scrummastering, coaching, I wish a radiant future. To those who wonder if we can do both (code on one side, facilitate on the other), I answer the same thing: go for it if that’s what you love, if that’s where you find meaning.

To those fleeing a pain, a frustration in their profession, I would tend to tell them to think about what they want, and perhaps to think about working differently first before fleeing to another profession. If it’s to find meaning, they can probably find it in their profession. They can reconsider the environment in which they work (there’s no shortage of work in the software profession, and I dare imagine there’s no shortage of work for cathedral builders of any kind), they can find meaning there. How?

How to do it when you’re a coder? developer? software craftsman, friends whisper to me? In the “agile” world we become craftsman, companion of code, we build cathedrals. Craftsmanship, Craftsman doesn’t mean locking yourself in your ivory tower, it means in my eyes facilitating from the maker’s, the builder’s point of view. Giving meaning to each gesture.

To take back control of your profession, give meaning to your gestures.