Have you ever been in a retrospective meeting that a facilitator, or someone tries to facilitate, asks questions about the last iteration but the team stays silent as hell?

If the answer is yes, there is a problem with the dynamics of the team. The problem might be frustration, repetition of impediments or something else. If a team prefers silence to increasing quality by sharing ideas, then it starts to dissolve. If we magnify the root cause of the smell, we will find the lack of safe environment.

What is a Safe Environment?

As far as I can tell -I will definitely extend this definition in future-, safe environment is a place where every member of the team trusts each other. But, the trust factor is taken for granted in most of the agile teams, as if we can trust anyone easily, can we?

What really trust is? According to Elizabeth Congdon, in her article, trust is the confidence among team members that their peers’ intentions are good, and that there is no reason to be protective or careful around the group. In essence, teammates must get comfortable being vulnerable with one another.

I especially like this definition. One can do her best while she is comfortable with her vulnerabilities. We can do our best while we are comfortable with what we are and where we are. Every one of us could make mistakes, but we are cool as long as our team backs us up.

If we don’t have the freedom that the safe environment granted, if we don’t trust our team, then we most likely to end up in the deserts created by fear. This shall never happen, as crafters, we all must stand against such cases and facilitate the team until the fear becomes trust.

How do we manage this fear? Well, I am just an apprentice, I will find out.