MyScrumMaster Diary- "What does a Scrum Master do all day?"

I am often asked what a Scrum Master should do. His tasks are only to invite and facilitate meetings - they say. And in Scrum, these meetings usually take place at the beginning or end of a sprint. The rest of the time - we think the Scrum Master has nothing to do. In this article, I would like to finally answer the question "What does a Scrum Master do all day?" -"Motivating and preparing meetings" is only a fraction of a Scrum Master's work time.

In the list I'm about to present to you, you'll see that the tasks and skills of a Scrum Master are more varied than you might think:

-Coaching the team and team members
-Doing ongoing training or mentoring
-Teaching
-Observe
-Enabling
-Initiate change
-Facilitator        

My goal is to become a very good Scrum Master because "Good Scrum Masters support two teams and very good Scrum Masters support ONE" [Michael James]. Only very good Scrum Masters make the added value of their role visible and tangible to others. I would also like to discuss some of the skills of this role:

Coaching:?In Germany, anyone can call themselves a "coach" without having undergone proper training, as the term is not protected. The same goes for the title "agile coach". Yet, it is one of the most important skills of a Scrum Master. In my opinion, coaching can't be learned from a book. I think you need professional coaching training.

Moderation and facilitation: When you see people moderating events, you think it's easy - but it's not. When you find yourself in the role of the moderator, you understand the work that lies behind it. Indeed, the Scrum Master must often facilitate meetings to facilitate collaboration and communication. It's all about helping the team and the stakeholders to achieve their results more easily. In your role as Scrum Master, you have to facilitate the way to the goal through moderation.

Teaching:?For the inexperienced stakeholders or team, as a Scrum Master, you have to train and coach them. This mainly involves teaching the relevant basics and creating a common and uniform understanding of the method. Ideally, the Scrum Master is the one who knows the agile method best within the team. When you create your Scrum Master training, make sure that it contains interactive parts so that the participants gain knowledge independently. As a trainer, you have to create the space in which learning can take place.

Continuing education:?A two day Scrum master training is not enough to become a good Scrum master. That's why it's essential to keep developing yourself by visiting blogs, reading books, listening to podcasts. Visiting meetups that exist in many cities can also help. There you can interact with like-minded people and network.?

Get active:?It is the Scrum Master's task to gradually enable the team to manage itself. He must actively help his team to overcome obstacles and protect them from external influences. Create spaces in which everyone can realize their full potential. The Scrum Master coaches his team members to help them excel.

Observe:?To observe means to evaluate a situation in a neutral way, which is often not easy. Often we let our compartmentalized thinking influence us and immediately classify things. Sometimes we need the perspective of the field to get a different view. To then ask ourselves the following questions:

- What did I observe?
- Where are the conflicts in the team or the conflicts that are brewing?
- Are there any beliefs emerging that are not good for the team?
- Has anyone's behavior changed recently?
- What could be the causes of this change?        

All of these questions help develop focused actions and themes for the next retrospective.

Initiate change:?Without change, agile is not possible. As a Scrum Master, you must become the change you want to achieve - easier said than done. In previous versions of the Scrum Guides, the Scrum Master is called a "Change Agent". Because initiating change is one of his main tasks. Often, the change is about the company culture, coaching team members or company customers, or influencing team dynamics.

That's why every Scrum Master should ask himself where he stands in terms of his skills. In other words, how do you evaluate your own skills? Above, I have listed some skills that a Scrum Master should have. Go through each of these points and give yourself a score between 0 and 10, where "0" means "Low Competence" and "10" means "Very High Competence".