Scrum Master

Scrum Master is the person responsible for implementing and supporting Scrum (an Agile Framework). He/she makes sure that the development team is abiding by the scrum theory and its rules and helping people outside the development team understand if their interactions are helping the team or not.

Although the Scrum Master may seem like a project leader to some, he/she is not to be referred as a project leader and is not held responsible for the outcome of the project, in a Scrum Team the whole team is responsible for the outcomes.

The Scrum Team

Since a scrum team does not have a project leader, the role of the scrum master to the development team is to keep them self-organized.

• Coaching the development team to be self-organized.
• Eliminating obstacles or impediments that may hinder their progress.
• Assists the development team to deliver high-value products.
• Helps in organizing scrum events.
• Supports and guides the development team in understanding the scrum framework.

What is an Impediment?
An impediment is simply an obstacle that would prevent the team to complete their task and move forward.

Scrum Master Role to the Company

The Scrum Master serves the company in many ways, including:

• Coaching and helping the company on the proper ways and theory of the Scrum Framework.
• Helping with planning and implementations of Scrum within the company.
• Helping the employees and customers understand and implement Scrum.
• Constantly helps improving the productivity of the Scrum team.
• Improving the effectiveness of Scrum by working with other Scrum Masters of the company.

The 8 Attitudes of a Scrum Master

1. Impediment Remover – handles any issues that the team encounters during development.
2. Change Agent – prepares the team with constant changes and helps them to adapt to it.
3. Servant Leader – a leader in serving the needs of the team members and provides value to the customer.
4. Manager – manages any issues or impediments of the team, keeps the team healthy, managing the team’s ability to self-organize.
5. Facilitator – takes action on the process for the team to collaborate and setting boundaries.
6. Teacher – teaches the proper implementation, rules and theory of scrum for the team to understand.
7. Coach – coaching the team with the right mindset and behavior to improve scrum knowledge.
8. Mentor – shares scrum experiences to the team.

Daily Scrum Meeting

Daily scrum meeting is a 15 minute time-boxed meeting that happens everyday before any work is started for the day and each team member must provide the answers to the following questions.

1. What did you do yesterday?
2. What will you do today?
3. Are there any impediments?

How to Become a Scrum Master

The Scrum Master has many different roles for the team as well as for the company, it’s best to be prepared for these roles and that you love to do them.

There are many sites that offer scrum master training and certification one of it is scrum.org, you can take your training and get your certification there.

scrum.org has a test assessment before you take the certification, one good tip is to take 10 dry runs of the assessment before you take the real one.

Conclusion

Although the Scrum team is a self-organizing team, the Scrum Master plays an important role critical to the team’s effectiveness to deliver high value product everytime.