What are 3 great traits of a scrum master?

As a developer, I used to be focused on technical excellence.

According to Steve Jobs, a superb developer was 25 times more valuable than an average developer. A perspective shared by Reed Hastings of Netflix who recently said that a good developer was easily 10 times better than an average developer (CNBC).

In some cases, cited in the Netflix article, developers were coding 20 times faster and better than an average coder whilst debugging could be up to 25 times faster.

Technical excellence really matters in software development environments.

I invested a great deal of time in practising, in addition to coding as my day job, and invented a series of tests and challenges to force me how to become more creative, resourceful, and skilled.

A practice and discipline that allowed me to grow and evolve as a lead developer pretty quickly.

As I evolved into a scrum master and agile coach, things shifted rapidly.

I could no longer rely on a technical skill in order to be great at my job. Scrum masters don’t produce anything nor are they responsible for the delivery of anything. They need to cultivate influence, relationships, and coaching skills to help the team create an environment where others can excel but they don’t possess the authority to enforce anything.

If you’re looking to all the old tools and techniques to shine as a scrum master, you’re going to find yourself snookered pretty quickly. You need to cultivate different skills and nurture different traits to someone who’s job relies on technical excellence or mastery of predetermined processes.

So, if you are an aspiring or experienced scrum master that is looking to shine, what traits do you need and how will those open doors for you in scrum environments?

This week’s newsletter is dedicated to providing you some insights into 3 important traits that you need to develop as a scrum master.

Quote

“A good Scrum Master is a servant leader of the Scrum team and works collaboratively with others to create an environment where others can excel. It is an extremely rewarding role, but it does require you to cultivate a number of traits in order to thrive within the role and Scrum environments.” – John McFadyen

Watch the full video ‘3 traits of a good scrum master’.

Question

What would you consider to be the most important trait of a scrum master and what would be a great example of that in practice?