One of the key tasks of a Scrum Master is to be a facilitator and a guide for the team. Facilitating is not about giving technical answers, but about creating the conditions for the team to find them.

Have you encountered teams where everything seems fine but there is little desire to improve? Do team members say they are motivated, but value deliveries do not improve? Do you notice your team has lost momentum? Do you feel your initiatives to motivate them fall on deaf ears?

To facilitate well, you must first understand the team as a whole, but also the individuals within it. This understanding includes facets that go beyond the strict application of their professional role. At a minimum, you should understand which aspects positively motivate them to be more efficient, more careful with quality, or more flexible in the face of change.

Jurgen Appelo, in his book Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders, proposes a set of aspects to which a person gives special importance when feeling motivated. These aspects are organized around a dynamic known as Moving Motivators.

Moving Motivators help the Scrum Master obtain a snapshot of the aspects that generate motivation in team members; and, with the team’s help, they can agree on a general team motivation map. With this valuable knowledge, the Scrum Master can then help the team find initiatives that improve motivation in these areas.

The aspects identified by Jurgen Appelo are the following:

• Curiosity: Freedom to explore, learn, innovate, and improve. Hackathons
• Acceptance: The need for people around you to understand and accept the value of what you do and who you are
• Power: The need to develop the ability to influence and to have space to exercise it. Influence
• Relatedness: What matters to me are good relationships with my environment
• Goals: The work I do reflects my professional goals. Work should evolve at the same pace as my goals
• Honor: The work I do reflects my values and beliefs
• Mastery: Work should represent a constant challenge in improving my professional profile. Certifications
• Freedom: My work is not substantially subject to others’ decisions. I value autonomy
• Order: The organization provides the team with appropriate rules and policies to work with stability
• Status: My position within the team is good and recognized by colleagues. There are realistic possibilities (a path) to improve

Where does it apply?

Moving Motivators is useful at any point in a team’s or project’s lifecycle. Although it can be especially helpful when a team is forming, its real value appears when it is used periodically or during moments of change.

For example, it can be particularly useful during changes in objectives, reorganizations, onboarding of new members, or when a drop in energy or engagement is perceived in the team. It evolves with the context of the project and the people. Therefore, reviewing it over time can provide valuable insights to guide real improvements in team dynamics.

Description of the tool and required materials

The tools for this activity consist of a card deck describing each motivating attitude, and a motivation map. The card deck includes each of the motivating aspects explained earlier.

The motivation map is used to display in a chart the selection of motivating attitudes chosen by one or more team members during the exercise.

Estimated time for this activity

For an individual session, where a team member selects the attitudes they find most motivating and then builds a personal motivation map, you may need around 20–30 minutes per person.

For a session aimed at creating a shared team motivation map based on individual data, you may need between 30 and 60 minutes.

How does it work?

It is recommended to start with a group dynamic that allows sharing perceptions about motivation and satisfaction levels. This first view helps detect patterns, differences, and possible friction points within the team.

To carry out the activity, we will use the motivator card deck explained earlier. Before starting, it is important to ensure everyone understands the meaning of each motivator and to clarify doubts.

Once this is done, the exercise can be deepened through individual conversations where useful. These conversations are not meant to make personal diagnoses, but to better understand nuances that may not appear in a group context.

1st step: Group action

This Moving Motivators activity pursues three important objectives:

1. Share motivators and satisfaction levels
2. Study the overall motivation picture of the team
3. Make team decisions to carry out collective improvement actions

An example of a group dynamic: We gather the team. We provide the full set of motivators explained earlier. If needed, we explain them. It is time to begin with the first objective: Sharing motivators and satisfaction levels:

1. Ask each team member to place three motivators (those they consider most relevant) on a board using post-its, for which they feel a high level of satisfaction.
2. Then ask them to do the same for three motivators where they feel low satisfaction.

Once done, we move to the second objective: Studying the overall picture:

To achieve this, it is important to clarify some points:

• The goal is not to promote unanimity nor to align criteria. It is perfectly valid and normal for people to have different motivators.
• This is not a game, but an exercise that helps us better understand ourselves and our teammates. Their needs and motivations do not have to be the same as ours.
• It is not about entering anyone’s private life. We are professionals seeking improvements in our work and quality. If this also improves self-awareness, great.
• The exercise does not aim to eliminate friction, but to make it visible so it can be reflected upon and improved.

A common scenario is discovering that half the team values order while the other half values freedom. This is normal. It reflects reality.

With these post-its, we form two clusters: satisfactory motivators and unsatisfactory motivators. We can organize them visually on the board.

Finally, we reach the last objective: Collective improvement action:

Here is where the magic happens. The Scrum Master does not guess solutions individually. The goal is for actions to emerge naturally from conversation and for the team to agree on what to do and how.

This is not a Project Manager forcing team building. It is a committed team actively seeking improvement.

Often the exercise can end here. However, it can also be complemented with more specific individual insights through interviews:

Personal interview. Part 1: What drives you?

The key question is: What drives you?

The person orders the cards from most to least motivating, placing the most motivating on the left and the least on the right.

Personal interview. Part 2: Why does it drive you?

The Scrum Master asks: Briefly explain why you ordered them this way.

The person can adjust their order after reflection.

Personal interview. Part 3: Conclusions

Question: What level of satisfaction do you currently experience for each motivator?

Cards are moved up (satisfied), down (unsatisfied), or left neutral.

Personal interview. Part 4: Building the motivation map

Both can build the personal motivation map as shown:

This chart shows two coordinates for each motivator. In blue we draw the importance given in part 1. In red we show the declared satisfaction level.

Ideally, key motivators are also satisfying, but this is rarely the case. Dissatisfaction in key motivators matters more than in minor ones.

The group exercise can be repeated periodically to provide fresh insights on motivation and satisfaction.

Let’s look at some examples

Individual misalignment

Example: Núria is brilliant but seems disengaged. More flexibility does not help. The exercise reveals Honor is her key motivator but satisfaction is 2/10. Her work does not align with her values.

The Scrum Master is not a therapist. Within limits, they can help her identify actions:

• Targeted training
• Mentoring
• More technically challenging work
• Moving to tasks aligned with her values

Team pattern detection

If many value Freedom but satisfaction is low, this may indicate bureaucracy or micromanagement.

The team, with Scrum Master facilitation, might:

• Discuss process flexibility
• Increase team autonomy

Some conclusions

Moving Motivators is a proven tool that helps Scrum Masters and teams better understand what truly drives motivation.

It may be ineffective or even counterproductive in high-conflict teams, rigid hierarchies, or environments lacking psychological safety.

Improvement actions should be treated as experiments, time-boxed (e.g., Sprints), and reviewed.

These dynamics must be observed over time, revisited periodically, measured in Sprint Retrospectives, and adjusted when needed.

Where to learn more?

Moving Motivators management30.com (https://management30.com/practice/moving-motivators/)

Retrospective with Management 3.0: Moving Motivators Knowledge21 (https://es.k21.global/blog/retrospectiva-moving-motivators)

Moving Motivators (Champfrogs) | Understanding people’s motivators JorgeRuizAgile (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZfpcFBBDYc)