What Makes a Great Scrum Master

My working style is to believe in people, trust them and encourage them to always strive to becoming better. I don’t appreciate organizations that encourage and use escalating, pushing and squeezing terms. If the organization culture cannot change, then be the change yourself.

I have seen many organizations and even team members that have different understanding and expectations of the Scrum master role especially if they are in the beginning of transforming from the old fashion way of working towards the agile journey. While there should be some tweaks to the role to fit into the organization’s needs, to define and understand the Scrum master role is crucial for a successful team. 

A Scrum Masters is everything to his team – a coach, a mentor, a leader Not a Manger and much more. The scrum master helps the team stay focused and use the best agile practices to streamline the organization processes and help the product owner and business to achieve their product vison and product backlog increments seamlessly. But this is just a predominant view of everything else the Scrum Master must do.

Working under such immense pressures to run one or more agile squads, they have little to no time for themselves and their improvements. Which is why to help all the Scrum Masters out there, let’s put down some basic points to help any Master become the greatest again.

What is a Scrum?

Let’s start off by understanding what Scrum is. Scrum is a simple framework within the Agile methodology, that is characterized by trusting, respecting and having a self-organizing team to adopt quickly to unpredictability and complex problems while pertaining the scum values; These values include Courage, Focus, Commitment, Respect, and Openness.  

How to be the Best?

Given that there are so many things that the Scrum Master has to take care of, there are bound to be moments where they wonder if they’re doing the best they can for their team. Here are some thoughts aside from all other given responsibilities that hopefully will help you become greater than you are:

1. Understand Roles and Responsibilities

We all know the teams should be cross-functional and trust me, I have rarely seen a cross functional team as per definition till date. That is why (at least in the beginning), it is important for every great Scrum Master to be perfectly aware of what his role is. If you, as a Scrum Master, are well familiar with what is expected of you, then you will be able to know about everyone else in the team and how best you can encourage and support them and in what roles they play.

Once you know what your own roles and responsibilities are, then you can help the team members understand and perform their roles together with other team members and build the confidence towards a cross functional team. You need to help the team clearly define all the roles for each person in your team, and the associated responsibilities as well, so that there is increased accountability.

The Scrum Master must know that it is their responsibility to deal with eliminating all the roadblocks so the team can work as efficiently as possible. In a nutshell, whatever it takes to ensure that the team does its best on the initiative, both individually and collectively, that is a part of the Scrum Master’s responsibility.

2. Focus on Your Teamwork Skills

The focus within a Scrum is the team. A project can only be as successful as the team that carries it out. If the team communication is weak and members are split up instead of united on the same boat, then the scrum master may fail at his/her job. With so much focus on the team, the servant leader needs to be a scrum master who is comfortable working in a team environment and who can claim about having good teamwork skills. Narrowing in on the role of the Scrum master, we see that the master does not enjoy  or should have a direct control over managing the entire team.

Instead, the master is only restricted to ensuring that the team stays on track, is working towards the right goal, and that the team is working together as one. Motivating teamwork is extremely important responsibility of the Scrum master. Which is why focusing on team skills is important to each scrum master. The scrum master’s role is pivotal in guiding the team’s progress. For this reason, they should have the capability to perform their role in a manner that is very inclusive of all the team members, one that is effective and sympathetic, but does not separate the members. If you have had a project management background, please try to change the mindset of the way of working and rather empower the team.

3. Strive for Continuous Improvement

The scrum master must strive for continuous improvement for his team. The master must coach his team about what is going on, what needs to be done and what is currently being done. The retrospective ceremony - which usually allows the team to reflect on:

• what went well?
• what didn’t go so well?
• what could be improved?

The retrospective meeting must take place after each sprint which gives the opportunity for the team to speak up about any challenges they had/have. When the challenges that team highlights are being made clear, any great scrum master would automatically take it up to the board to find a way to eliminate it and give the team the very best environment to work with for the upcoming sprints. Retrospective is very important ceremony that must not be ignored. You as a great scrum Master must make sure to facilitate it and encourage the team to communicate without fear about their concerns.

4. Involve the Team in understating the new mindset

A great Scrum master must ensure that his team is onboard with the Scrum framework and helps the team to understand the agile principals. If the team is onboard, then they will be better able to adopt to the new mindset. Also, by empowering the team, they will feel like their voice is being heard and respected, which will leave them feeling motivated and as a result, increase their productivity.

For example, when facilitating the daily standup or grooming, all team members should be able to speak and express their opinions. This leadership style requires the Scrum master to lead by collaboration and feedback, instead of only demanding and acting as if his orders are set in stone. One of the most common problems about Scrum is the huge number of meetings being set up. If the team is also involved in the setting up of these meetings, then this problem can be dealt with in a much smoother manner that suits everyone. You as a scrum master must shield the team and eliminate the meetings to the number of ceremonies and cadence that have been decided.

5. Recognize and Resolve Team Conflict

The team looks up to the Scrum master to provide them with a conflict-free environment where they can work effectively. A good scrum master recognizes and decides to leave it up to the team members to solve their internal conflicts. But a great scrum master would do things entirely differently.

To be a great scrum master, you should not only be able to recognize when there are internal conflicts taking place within your team, but in addition you should also have techniques to work towards conflict resolution. Any successful Scrum master can identify and resolve conflict right at its early stages.

6. Knows When to Be Quiet and Observe

A quality that is lacking in many scrum masters is their lack of knowing when to stay silent and when to play an active role in the team. Most of them forget that the team ultimate goal is to be self-organized and be able to function efficiently on their own without so much dependence on the management. Any great scrum master of course understands this point and realizes that the goal is not to babysit the team at every occasion, but rather to allow them space to learn and grow on their own too. Don’t try to always play an active role in every session.

Sometimes it is much better to sit back and simply observe. For example, let the team carry out the daily Scrum with you just observing. This will also allow you to better understand what is happening, and might help you gain some valuable insight that you otherwise would not have realized if you had been conducting the Scrum. Also, by standing at the sidelines, you will be able to better see things from another angle.

Other qualities for scrum master:

1.      Understand the development and test platforms and tools used.

2.     Dare to say “no” to protect the team

3.     Let his team fail sometimes. Many managers will not agree about this one. I have seen it and heard it myself many times.

4.     Is up to date about recent technologies.

5.     Has faith in self-organized team

6.     Shares knowledge with the team

7.     Build a good repo with Po and business owners.

8.    Passionate about helping others.

9.     Spreads enthusiasm

10. Last but not the least, don’t (Push, Squeeze, Escalate, pressure).  

The Final Verdict

In the end, I would like to say that being a scrum master is a difficult task, you should build trust in your team, so you know that they are capable of self-organizing and performing all their roles themselves. But never forget that at the end of the day, it is your job to ensure that they are on the right path. You should provide your team with the best environment possible so that they can perform effectively. 

Good luck

Further read:

• Changing the Organization Mindset For Agile
• Setting your Agile course with Sail Boat
• How you transform your business.
• Digital Transformation: What Does It Mean in 2018
• Digitization, Digitalization, Digital transformation
• Digital transformation and the legacy barriers
• Leading Digital transformation