Becoming a good ScrumMaster

Introduction

What's a good ScrumMaster? What makes you one?

Let's look first at the outcomes we want a good SM to produce.

Before we even look at those, let's say Scrum is a Team sport. It is all about winning as a Team.

So, the key outcome is to satisfy the customers more with a wonderful product built by a great Team.

Let's make that clear. Much as we love Scrum, we only do it, we mainly recommend it because it will help you build a better product faster for customers that you love.

Purpose and Problems

It's important to understand that purpose.

If you don't love your customers, you are in the wrong business. Find a business where you do love your customers. (OK, like your customers, if you prefer that word.)

You should want to build a wonderful product for them. Again, if you don't like your product, build a different kind of product that you do like. (As one small example, it is more than possible that social media on the whole is bad for people. If you think that, then don't be in the business of building social media products.)

Next, Scrum is a Team sport. Some people do not enjoy Teams, and maybe never will. That does not make that person bad, but it does mean they should not use Scrum, I think. Do not make a person do something they do not want to do. (Don't make yourself do that.)

Similarly, sometimes you like Teams, and you have enjoyed being on sveral Teams. But, you don't like this Team. There can be many reasons. Advice: Give it some time (hard to say how much), but if you are sure, then you must change to a Team you do like.

ScrumMaster Goal

The goal is to build a great Team or at least a much better Team.

So, I think of the ScrumMaster as like a coach for a futball Team, or hockey Team, basketball Team, or baseball Team, or cricket Team. You are trying, in any way you can, and certainly in many ways, to build a great winning Team.

With us, in product innovation (our usual kind of work), the goal is not to win the World Cup or the Stanley Cup or NBA Champion or World Series winner. Our goal, as a Team is to build a great winning product. (Whatever winning means in your product domain.)

As a ScrumMaster, perhaps the goal for you is just to have a great Team. Because you like the Team so much. But, really, you must support delivering a winning product too.

Now, having defined that, it is obvious that a Manager of a baseball Team does not have complete control over success. Everyone must contribute. So, in part, the ScrumMaster is asking - encouraging - cajoling many different people to contribute.

ScrumMaster Activities

It could be said that all a ScrumMaster does is work on impediments. I suppose that is correct in the sense that anything that is keeping a Team from becoming better is an impediment. But I think also to many people, that phrase is confusing.

Let's list some activities. Later we will write some posts to explain each.

• Educate people on agile-scrum
• Facilitate, most obviously by facilitating meetings, and making them more useful than they have ever been.
• Encourage more collaboration within the Team, and better collaboration.
• Coach
• Protect the Team from Dementors (those who say they want to help, but only distract the Team)
• Protect the Team from distractions
• Increase the fun and happiness on the Team
• Increase the trust within the Team, which often comes from winning more Sprints
• Encourage self-organization and self-management by the Team
• Enable the Team to make a reasonable promise (to complete a set of stories) in the Sprint Planning Meeting that the Team can, in the Sprint, fairly reliably deliver. The first issue, almost universal, is to get the Team not to over-commit.
• Increase the honesty within the Team. And increase transparency in the Team and in the organization. (Yes, maybe that also means getting people outside the Team to be more honest too.)
• Establish a Kaizen culture. Where we are admitting that we are imperfect and always trying to do small things to become better. A lot of this is mindset, including the characteristic we might call determination.
• Enable impediments (of any type) to be removed or mitigated. Fixed by the ScrumMaster, by the Team, or by people outside the Team. The SM helps the fixer get them fixed better and faster.
• Get the Team to quickly prioritize the Top 20 Impediments.
• Encourage learning and knowledge sharing in the Team. "Two heads are better than one." "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts."
• Do whatever it takes to help the Team become hyper-productive, and still maintain a sustainable pace. We think the main action is continually getting impediments fixed.
• A favorite of Ken Schwaber's: Build a higher-quality mindset (and related practices), so that "the bad news doesn't get better with age."
• Build up the heart of the Team. A comforter in losses. An inspirer. Someone who encourages. A cool head in the heat of battle. (The SM does not have to be this person. The SM must find this person or persons. Perhaps better if this is enacted through multiple people in the Team.)

Conclusion

To be fair, we don't care what you do as a SM so long as the Team becomes a lot better.

In other words, don't try to do everything on the list (above) every day or every week. Do each day that small number of things that will move the Team forward the most. Your best guess. And learn from that.

To fix impediments successfully, the Team must identify them well, and be willing to mention things that should have been fixed ages ago. The Managers and the organization must also be willing to allow good changes to happen. And the Manager(s) must help remove some impediments, at least in the sense of providing people or money or simply approval that the change can be made.

It's not all up to you. But you should be starting it.

If you can learn to build great teams, you will find it very satisfying.