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. - Scrum Guide
If you have chosen to occupy the role of Scrum Master, you are starting a path through which you must achieve an in-depth understanding of Scrum.
Your focus is on the work process and continuous improvement. Your goal is for the Scrum Team to evolve and become a team:
- Proficient: in the use of Scrum. Not only in knowledge but in implementation.
- Self-managed: deciding who works on what, how they do it, and when they do it.
- And cross-functional: not reliant on third parties to build an Increment in each Sprint.
To support you in this endeavor, I recommend that you develop and master four key disciplines: training, consulting, facilitation and coaching.
Training skills will help you to transmit the necessary knowledge for others to understand Scrum.
Consulting skills will help advise the Scrum Team and the stakeholders on how to use Scrum efficiently and avoid anti-patterns.
Facilitation is key to facilitating the different Scrum events and making them meaningful encounters for everyone involved with valuable results.
Coaching is an essential competence needed to accompany the Scrum Team to overcome Sprint after Sprint, demolish self-limiting beliefs, and expand its range of possibilities to deliver value. Coaching will also improve your particular practices within the Scrum framework.
Servant Leadership
You are a servant leader. Many times they will even refer to you as Facilitator or Coach instead of Scrum Master. As we have seen, your responsibility is to ensure that Scrum is followed without directly interfering with the Increment development. The Scrum Team is the one who chooses the way of working that they prefer most, as long as the basic Scrum guidelines are met, so as long as they work, there is no “wrong” way of working.
Your role as Scrum Master also includes ensuring that product development has the highest probability of being completed successfully. To accomplish this, you put your servant leadership into practice, closely serving the Scrum Team, the Product Owner, and the organization.
Your service to the Scrum Team will be reflected through:
- The training of team members in self-management and cross-functionality;
- Helps the team focus on creating high-value Increments that meet the Definition of Done;
- Channeling the elimination of impediments to the team's progress; and,
- Ensure that all Scrum events occur, are positive, productive, and stay within the time frame.
Your service to the Product Owner will be reflected in:
- Helping the Product Owner find techniques for defining product objectives and managing the Product Backlog;
- Helping the Scrum Team understand the need for clear and concise Product Backlog Items;
- Assisting the Product Owner establish empirical product planning for a complex environment; and,
- Facilitating stakeholder collaboration as requested or needed
Your service to the organization will be reflected in:
- Leading, training, and coaching the organization in its adoption of Scrum;
- Planning and advising on Scrum implementations within the organization;
- Helping employees and stakeholders understand and apply an empirical approach to complex work; and,
- The elimination of barriers between stakeholders and Scrum Teams.