Scrum Master is like a football coach.
You don’t play on the field, but you guide and empower the team to win the match.
Let's get started with understanding who a Scrum Master is.
If we wanted to compare a Scrum Team with another team in other sectors, we could talk about a music orchestra.
Music Composer is the Product Owner
Musicians are the Developers
Orchestra Conductor is the Scrum Master
Scrum Master is the Product Development Orchestra Conductor
Your focus point is on How Well,
as you are accountable for the Scrum Team Effectiveness.
As a Scrum Master, you should NOT do:
- Asking the progress status of everyone in the Daily Scrum
- Assigning tasks to people
- Updating the Sprint Board
- Making sure everyone has something to work on
- Reporting to the managers and stakeholders about the project status
- Just booking rooms for meetings
- Just creating fun for the team and being a cheerleader
- Feeling you are the manager of the team and can command them
- Being a Jira Admin
- Believing your only duty is facilitating Scrum Events
Aspects to See the Scrum Master’s Responsibilities
A: Three levels of Accountabilities
B: Goals of Scrum Mastery
C: Three categories of Audience to serve
D: Stances & Wearing Hats
E: Cadence of your services
A: Three levels of Accountabilities
Scrum Guide says:
The Scrum Master is accountable for establishing Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide.
The Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness.
Scrum Masters are true leaders who serve the Scrum Team and the larger organization.
Establishing Scrum
Do we use the true version of Scrum?!
Imagine you want to play Rugby. First, you need to learn the rules of the game. You need someone to teach and guide you to play it right.
Some terms of Rugby:
Ruck,
Maul,
Lineout,
Scrum,
Knock-on
You can find two variants of Scrum in the market:
Superficial Scrum
Professional Scrum
Their differences are shown in this picture, where Professional Scrum includes the elements under the water as well.
B: Goals of Scrum Mastery
1- Building a collaborative team that uses TRUE Scrum unconsciously.
2- Setting up a gentle flow of value creation and delivery.
3- Creating satisfied customers and stakeholders.
Gentle Flow of Value Delivery
Setting up a fluent value stream pipeline where work gently moves without any barriers.
C: Three categories of Audience to serve
Serving Scrum Team
Causing the removal of impediments to the Scrum Team’s progress.
Coaching the team members in self-management and cross-functionality
...
Serving Product Owner
Helping find techniques for effective Product Goal definition and Product Backlog management.
Helping establish empirical product planning for a complex environment.
...
Serving Organization
Leading, training, and coaching the organization in its Scrum adoption.
Planning and advising Scrum implementations within the organization.
...
D: Stances & Wearing Hats
These are various stances that a Scrum Master can choose to serve others:
Teaching
Facilitating
Coaching
Mentoring
Change Agent
Impediment Remover
Conflict Resolution
E: Cadence of your services
Checking some services
1- How to Evaluate Scrum Team Performance
Scrum Team Performance is NOT a simple one-aspect, but a multi-aspect concept.
Imagine you want to compare two cars, saying which one is better.
To do so, you need to consider multiple parameters:
- Safety
- Fuel consumption
- Comfort
- Brand reputation
- Durability
- Environmental impact
- Cost of maintenance
- Build quality
- Design & Aesthetics
- And many more …
Scrum Team success is defined by meeting the expectations, not doing more.
So, for performance evaluation, your focus should be on the right side of the spectrum.
2- Creating constructive relationships with others based on reciprocity
You should be willing and open to offer real help and support to others without expecting anything in return.
It activates others to compensate for your help one day in the future.
3- Managing emergency work
4- Helping Product Owner to Create a Product Vision
Click on the image to watch the video:
5- Keeping Transparency High with Sprint Reports
Click on the image to see the report:
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If you want to start your Scrum journey powerfully and learn Scrum through a high-quality training with a super bonus (a bonus that you cannot find anywhere else), attend my upcoming Professional Scrum Master (PSM) class. Click here to get more information about the class.