Hi David.

Actually, Steve Jobs was technical. He and Steve Wozniak were both very into building home computers in the early days. Over time Jobs focused on the business — but he had deeply technical roots — he understood machine language and circuitry. And he stayed deeply involved in every product — personally conceiving some products, and having go-or-no-go over every other Apple product during his time there.

You are right that a technical background does not “lead to success” — no background does. But I teach DevOps to Agile coaches, and let me share what one of them has said. She said that she is now “invited to meetings that she never would have been before”, and the team looks at her differently, and now she understands what they are talking about most of the time.

In the life of a software team, most of the issues are technical. If you don’t understand those issues, you can’t follow what they are doing. The job is not like a therapist who just says, “How does that make you feel?” — you need to understand the topics that are being discussed. You don’t need to be the smartest person in the room, but you are their leader — you are. They are not self-organizing — that’s a myth and is total BS. They look to you as their SM to help them to organize. If you don’t stimulate discussions on the things that need to be talked about, those things will usually languish.

You don’t need to be a programmer: you just need to understand their stuff. Take an interest. Partner with the tech lead. Make him/her explain things to you. Ask questions. Read about DevOps. Read about microservices. Maybe even take a course in those things. Take an interest.