Top 7 responsibilities of a Scrum Master

The Scrum Master wears many hats, and carries out several mission-critical responsibilities on the Scrum project. Here is a curated Scrum Master responsibilities list.

1. Coaches team members

·??????The Scrum Master acts as the coach for both the development team and the product owner. By acting as a bridge between the roles, he or she can enable the product owner to directly drive development.?

·??????The Scrum Master knows the capabilities of the team and constantly finds ways to help the team to boost performances and enhance productivity.

·??????He or she makes sure that the team is well trained, and understands Agile well enough to address challenges on its own.

·??????Like any good coach, the Scrum Master does not solve the problems faced by the team, rather, they facilitate them in solving the problem themselves. Only in extreme cases when the team is unable to find a resolution, the Scrum Master takes full accountability and ownership of the problem and gets it resolved.

2. Hosts Daily Stand-up Meetings, Sprint Planning Meetings, Retrospectives and Reviews

The Scrum Master will facilitate and host all the Scrum events, including Sprint Planning Meetings, Daily Stand-up Meetings, Reviews and Retrospectives.

3. Acts as a Servant Leader

The Scrum Master is often referred to as a servant leader. A servant leader is someone who asks, “what can I do today to help you and the team be more effective?” rather than asking “what are you going to do for me today?”

His or her objective is to enhance and increase teamwork and personal involvement. Rather than being a master of the team, the Scrum Master is a master at encouraging, enabling and energizing people and helping them to realize their potential.

Servant leadership is when the leader is not a superior, but rather a part of the body of the team.

S – See the future,

E – Engage and Develop Others

R – Reinvent Continuously

V – Value Results and Relationships

E – Embody the Values

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A servant leader should have the following qualities:

? Listening skills

? Empathy

? Cultivating a culture of trust

? Acting with humility

? Encouraging others

? As a servant leader, the Scrum Master’s duties include:

Leading the team through healthy conflict and debate on ideas

Teaching, mentoring and coaching the organization and team in adopting and using Scrum

Helping the team remove and prevent impediments

Empowering and guiding the development team on self-management.

4. Helps the Product Owner with the Product Backlog

While it is the Product Owner’s responsibility to create and maintain the product backlog, the Scrum master helps the product owner refine and groom the tasks, based on current status of the work and development needs. The Scrum Master is in the best position to do this, using the information gathered from the daily stand-up meetings.

The Scrum Master helps with the product backlog by scheduling review meetings and prioritizing tasks on user stories.

5. Protects the Team from outside interference

The Scrum Master acts as a protector and helps the team by protecting it from outside interference that comes in the way of delivering the business value during each sprint.

Interference can come from many sources; for instance, it can be from managers who want to redirect team members in the middle of a sprint. No matter what the source of the interference, the Scrum Master acts as an interceptor and solves the issue amicably.

6. Removes obstacles

A core responsibility of the Scrum Master is to help the team stay focused on the tasks that need to be done in each iteration, and for this, any distractions and roadblocks that can impede progress must be ironed out. This is important especially when the team members cannot easily remove those impediments on their own.

For instance, if team members are being forced to attend too many unimportant meetings that do not allow them to make progress on the work, the Scrum Master can work with meeting organizers to pare down the number of attendees for each meeting. Only those who are absolutely essential can participate.

If a team member is being assigned tasks on multiple teams, the Scrum Master can work to redistribute the workload.

Again, there could be internal disagreements in the team about their individual working styles or there could be disagreements about the Scrum process itself. The Scrum Master may have a one-on-one meeting with development team members to understand the same, and resolve such conflicts before they escalate into full-blown disagreements.

7. Teaches and upholds Scrum practices and principles

The Scrum Master is well-versed in all key Scrum practices and processes and knows how to follow the core values of Scrum. If the other team members are new to Agile, the Scrum Master acts as a mentor and teacher to guide new team members, helping them to learn the ropes and ensuring work does not slow down.

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The Scrum Master has the authority to ensure whether the team enacts and adheres to the Scrum values, principles, and practices. Whenever they are found wanting, as a teacher, the Scrum master will help them to understand the scope and vision, and adhere to Scrum practices and rules.