A Scrum Master and her Cameo appearance
Alfred Hitchcock, a notable English film writer, director, and producer is known for his cameo appearances.
Wikipedia has created a separate page to list all his cameo appearances made so far. He made cameo appearances in 40 out of his 54 major films.
Lifeboat produced by Alfred Hitchcock had him a cameo appearing in a newspaper photograph.
The cameo roles played by Hitchcock are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones. This playful gesture became one of Hitchcock’s signatures; fans would make a sport of trying to spot his cameos.
Significance of Scrum Master from the recent changes to the Scrum Guide
Starting with a reference from Scrum Guide 2020 on the Scrum Master,
“Scrum requires a Scrum Master to foster an environment where:
- A Product Owner orders the work for a complex problem into a Product Backlog.
- The Scrum Team turns a selection of the work into an Increment of value during a Sprint.
- The Scrum Team and its stakeholders inspect the results and adjust for the next Sprint.
- Repeat”
The Scrum framework is purposely incomplete and can be built on by the collective intelligence of the people using it.
The Scrum has gone much lighter and less prescriptive. Instead, the rules of Scrum are there to guide people and their interactions.
“Scrum employs an iterative, incremental approach to optimize predictability and to control risk. Scrum engages groups of people who collectively have all the skills and expertise to do the work and share or acquire such skills as needed.” — The Scrum Guide 2020
Scrum Masters help bring more visibility on the relative efficacy of current management, environment, and work techniques so that improvements can be made.
With much prescriptive content moving off the July 2020 Scrum Guide, there is more significance and clarity brought around the Scrum Master’s accountability and responsibilities.
“The Scrum Master is accountable for establishing Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. They do this by helping everyone understand Scrum theory and practice, both within the Scrum Team and the organization.” — The Scrum Guide
Remembering all that Scrum requires from a Scrum Master to better implement Scrum, what happens when a Scrum Master is associated with more Scrum Teams than what she can afford?
A Scrum Master and her cameo appearance
“Cameos are generally not credited because of their brevity, or a perceived mismatch between the celebrity’s stature and the film or television series in which they are appearing. Many are publicity stunts.” — Wikipedia
A Scrum Master stretched catering to multiple teams end up becoming a
- Scrum Secretary — Scheduling Scrum Events ahead and blocking the Scrum Team’s calendar. Bring down responsibility to just keep the Scrum Events getting done with leave calendar and cadence in mind.
- The Patrol — Am aware of the Scrum Police as a misunderstood stance of Scrum Master by Barry Overeem. Here am mentioning something very different from the Scrum Police (noun) to a Scrum Patrol (verb).
A patrol officer maintains law and order and protects a community by enforcing laws. Now, the Scrum Patrol does something similar with more teams assigned to her responsibility. Ensure Scrum Events are happening and respond to important things for help on a case to case basis.
- The Admin — Help required in JIRA and Murals are sought on precedence and addressed in the same order remotely.
- The Guest — Show surprise visits to Developers and Product Owner in Scrum Events whenever events from the other teams’ do not conflict.
- The Raffle Player — Given the nature of time availability and continuous conflicts, the Scrum Master associated with multiple Scrum Teams plays a raffle to tell who gets the privilege this time for Sprint Retrospectives.
“The Scrum Team identifies the most helpful changes in the Sprint Retrospective to improve its effectiveness. The most impactful improvements are addressed as soon as possible. They may even be added to the Sprint Backlog for the next Sprint.” — The Scrum Guide 2020
Not everyone who has a shared Scrum Master has the luxury to ensure Sprint Retrospectives for every Sprint. Now it is up to the Scrum Master and her sole decision to pick and choose which Scrum Team gets her time for the Sprint Retrospective.
Wrap Up!
There are many factors on top of Scrum Masters’ getting shared across multiple Scrum Teams to have such experience.
- All the Scrum Teams under the Scrum Master do start and end on the same time frame squeezing the Scrum Master’s availability and focus at the Sprint Start and Sprint end days.
- There are no Scrum Masters available in the organization with the growing speed of Scrum implementation. This could be a stop-gap solution to explore before moving things to a better situation.
- Management and leaders are not sure what benefit they get out of Scrum and hence the limitations with Scrum Master and the current challenges.
- Driving cost savings with one Scrum Master serving multiple Scrum Teams.
The reasons could be much more and worse than what I have listed. Having said that, the intention is not to pinpoint the rationale behind the decisions, but to offer my perspective and invite the reader to re-imagine the Scrum Master role better.
“The Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness. They do this by enabling the Scrum Team to improve its practices, within the Scrum framework. Scrum Masters are true leaders who serve the Scrum Team and the larger organization.” — The Scrum Guide
Re-imagine the role of a person involved in a publicity stunt to hold accountability for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness.
NOTE: Am deliberately avoiding the argument and recommendation on how many Scrum Teams to which a Scrum Master can get associated.