What Your Scrum Master Should Not Be Doing
Robby Coelho MBA
(Agile) Team Coach | Unlocking Team Potential through People-Minded Leadership
In this series of articles on personal leadership in software engineering, I previously discussed the leadership style and credibility of your manager. In this article, I would like to zoom in on another key role in present day software development, the Scrum Master. As far as I am concerned, a role often misunderstood by many, including some Scrum Masters themselves.
My First Scrum Master
I was introduced to my first Scrum Master around 2010, a non-technical, former project manager who brought Scrum to us as if he had found the Holy Grail. At the time, I had been using agile methodologies for years (DSDM, Extreme Programming, and Scrum). The Scrum Master responsibilities were therefore not new to me. Having one person dedicated to them, however, was. Up until then, my team members and I organically picked up these responsibilities when we had the time. I did not see the added value of the Scrum Master role right away and as it turned out to be I was not the only one.
What My First Scrum Master Did
My experience with this Scrum Master could best be described as watching a kid repeatedly shove an incorrect shape through one of the holes in a shape sorter cube, eventually succeeding by forcefully damaging both the shape and the hole. To this day I see large corporations still doing pretty much the same in agile transformations. Just as the Scrum Master was forcing Scrum, organizations force agile transformations. My Scrum Master was a man of integrity whose intentions were good; however, in hindsight I can conclude that he obviously lacked the skills and competences needed to be a Scrum Master. He should not have been forcing Scrum.
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What My First Scrum Master Should Have Done
Scrum is not a one-size-fits-all in my opinion. As a framework, it leaves deliberate gaps for teams to fill in with techniques and patterns, a process the Scrum Master should facilitate. Especially when the team, like my team back then, does not see the benefits in Scrum right away. As true leaders, Scrum Masters are accountable for the Scrum team’s effectiveness according to the Scrum Guide. The guide also states that the Scrum Master does not only serve the Scrum team, but also the organization by amongst others leading, training, and coaching the organization in its Scrum adoption. It therefore takes a serious professional to fulfil the Scrum Master role as it was intended.
Actionable Item
In closing I would like to leave you with an actionable item. In this article I discussed the role of Scrum Master, in my opinion an often-misunderstood role in software development. When understood, however, I strongly believe he or she can be of immense value to your team. If you are part of a Scrum team, I would urge you to make sure you understand the role and its added value. The Scrum Guide is an excellent place to start. Use this knowledge to continuously evaluate whether your Scrum Master is up to the task. For if he or she is not, it is the team who will experience the pain of having incorrect shapes forcefully shoved into holes in the shape sorting cube by an unqualified Scrum Master.
As always, I love to receive feedback, feel free to drop me a note!
Ik denk dat je hier de spijker exact op de kop slaat. Ik ben blij met jouw inzichten en aanpak. Hoop de komende tijd nog veel van je te leren.
Owner at Alphaleaves Consultancy | QA Specialist & Freelance Test Consultant | Empowering Agile Teams
1 年I concur with your viewpoint and analysis of what a Scrum Master should and should not be doing as stated in this post. I particularly like how you emphasize how crucial experience is to become a successful Scrum Master. Instead of simply executing a set of rules and practices, a skilled Scrum Master has the abilities and expertise to tailor their teaching style to the demands of each unique team and company. This is essential to good coaching to boost team and organizational success. Thanks for sharing.