Tasks of an Scrum Master
Hello,
I have been working for several years as a Team Member of several Scrum Teams. Now I want to go on and become an Scrum Master.
But one point is not clear to me. In several companys they told me that a Scrum Master should have only one or at least 2 Teams, he is responsible for.
I think I know pretty good the tasks of an Scrum master and so I'm not sure what a Scrum Master would do on a normal day for 8 hours in his job.
Of course, he has the daily standup and maybe some work after it to resolve some problems. Hey maybe also thinks a bit how he can improve the Team. But this doesn't take 8 hours.
So you may can tell me, from your experience what a Scrum master would do for 8 hours.
Hi Stefan,
Allow me to ask a question prior to sharing some thoughts....
What are the 3 Entities that the Scrum Master serves?
Also note that some responses here will be based on one's experience with different corporate cultures, size and initiative, etc.
Hi Nitin,
3 Main tasks of a scrum master
1: invite and moderate the scrum meeting (takes from 15 min per day to a complete day)
2: solve any task related impediments the team has and I can solve (0 to x hour per day)
3: "protect" the team from the product owner and any other stuff that could disturb their focus to the actual tasks
Of course I know that the role of an scrum master will be very different from company to company. It still would be very interesting for me to hear what other scrum masters do all day long.
thanks Stefan
To me, Scrum Master has three roles:
1. To service to the Product Owner.
2. To service to the Development Team.
3. To service to the organization.
I think what you said above is just focusing on Development Team.
Besides, when serving to the Development Team, except what's you specified, he/she also need to:
- Coaching the Team in self-organization and cross-functionality, which always has room to improve.
- Helping the team to create high-value products.
- Coaching the team in organizational environments in which Scrum is not yet fully adopted and understood.
So there should be a lot of thing need to be done.
Hi,
a great compilation:
http://agiletrail.com/2011/11/14/42-tasks-for-a-scrum-masters-job/
:)
Depending on the maturity in Agile in your context, how much time could it take to serve each of the 3 entities ?
PS : if you read carefully the Scrum Guide, you will notice that the presence of the Scrum Master is not required for the Daily Scrum.
I have read across many authoritative agile websites as well from Agile coaches that a SM should only be working on 1 scrum team.
If you think in context of servant leadership, a SM as the role is defined in the Scrum Guides has a lot of responsibility that fills the 8 hours workday. Again, using the Scrum Guide is only part of what an organization could tack on as the SM's role and responsibility.
I'm paraphrasing this from a kind Trainer who allowed me to take his class. He summarized it quite well --
+ Ask powerful questions
+ Facilitate
+ Educate
+ Interrupt
+ Actively do nothing!