The Role of Scrum Master (SM)

Introduction

In last few years, many customers are opting for Agile principles and want the projects to be based on scrum methodology. One of the prime reason is fluidity of the requirements. Businesses have a vision and want to evolve their desires based on EXPERIENCES, FEEDBACK and OBSERVATIONS. Scrum facilitates this desire by providing a framework suitable for COMPLEX, UNPREDCITABLE and ADAPTIVE problems which comprises of multiple unknowns. It is based on an empirical process control where main pillars are TRANSPARENCY, INSPECTION and ADAPTATION. Anything that is inspected outside of the goals in a scrum, it immediately adapts the process, plan or the product. This is a framework consists of scrum team (dev team, scrum master and the product owner) with clearly defined roles, events and artifacts.

Role of Scum Master

It is a very debatable topic as to what is the role of the scrum master. What value he/she brings to the table. It is said the dev team is cross-functional, self-sufficient and self-organized in scrum, so is it really mandatory to have a scrum master in the team. I have worked in various agile projects where scrum was used fully/partially. Recently I have gone through training on CSM, which has helped me to understand scrum theory in a broader way along with significance of various roles in the scrum. SM plays a crucial role in the agile projects. His/her job may be thankless but SM is the one who acts as a COACH, FACILITATOR and ENABLER for all the scrum events. SM needs to ensure the team lives the agile values and principles. 

Attributes of Scrum Master

Sprints are of very short duration in scrum, even few hours of stuck/barriers can make the sprint successful/unsuccessful. It is desirable for the scrum master to exhibit below attributes who is one of the key member in the scrum team.

Services of Scrum Master

SM provides various services to the development team, product owner and to the organization. Below are key points on how he/she facilitates this.

SERVICES TO PRODUCT OWNER

• PO is a business person. SM helps PO in writing requirements that are easy to interpret by different stakeholders
• Helps in understanding the scrum
• Helps in ordering product backlog items and coaches on different techniques for effective product backlog management
• Facilitates in conducting various scrum events, strategy workshops
• Works with PO to maximize the return on investment
• Helps the PO and dev team to come up with suitable definition of done (DoD) 

SERVICES TO DEVELOPMENT TEAM

• Helps in resolving the impediments. Interacts with the various teams ensuring quick turnaround to the development team queries. Please note SM is a relationship person who at times get the query answered quickly based on relationship with the external teams.
• Ensures all the scrum events happens and a decision is arrived with consensus. E.g. facilitates dev and PO in sprint planning meeting. Ensures the environment is conducive and at the end of meeting sprint backlog and sprint goal is realized
• Coaches the team in Self organization and Cross functionality aspect
• Enables the team on creating the high value products by acting as a process coach and creates a culture of collaboration within the team
• Addresses the distractions and disruptions by acting as a protector of the team

SERVICES TO THE ORGANIZATION

                               Helps organizations in dealing with

• Administration issues
• HR policies, which hamper scrum’s adoption
• Collaborate with other scrum masters to improve the efficiency

Summary

Looping at the above roles/services provided by the SM, we can say SM plays a key role in agile projects. He/She is not someone who will facilitate scrum events and resolve impediments faced by the dev team. Rather he is the “Ravi Shastri” of the scrum team who works as a COACH, FACILITATOR of the development team by enabling them in MAXIMIZING their THROUGHPUT and creating HIGHVALUE PRODUCTS. Without SM, dev team might have to spend hours in resolving impediments and external distractions. SM enables the dev team to focus on the sprint goal, acting as a shield for all the external distractions and working closely with the PO for effective product backlog management. Last but not the least SM provides various services to the organization and ensure scrum is followed smoothly in the project without any disruptions from the organization policies, which may disrupt agile principles and scrum methodology. All I can say SM is a relationship role who has knowledge of business, technology and domain. This is a key role in the project, which is well exhibit by experienced associates through SERVANT LEADERSHIP STYLE in the organization.

Credits : By ., Harsh (Cognizant) Manager - Projects