Are they project managers with a fancy title? Why are they called masters? Isn’t Scrum a rugby thing?

So what is a Scrum Master? 

You may have heard someone say they are a Scrum Mast but have wondered what that is. That’s what this article is all about, so let’s get started.

The Scrum Master must be a master of the Scrum framework, its theory, rules, practices, and values. But the role of the Scrum Master resembles more that of a coach, and they ensure the team understands and practices Scrum effectively.

When I think about what a Scrum Master is, three words come to mind:

• ‍Coaching‍
• Clarity ‍
• Servant Leadership

In this article I'll also cover:

• The responsibilities of a scrum master
• Next steps to becoming a scrum master

Coaching​

While the product owner focuses on maximizing the value delivered to the product, the Scrum Master focuses on maximizing the impact of the development team.

I have kids who play basketball. Over the course of a few years, we went from “how to dribble” to “how to attack a 2-3 zone.” In the beginning, there was a lot of specific hands-on instruction, then supervision with more instruction, and finally encouragement with the occasional correction or instruction. The role of a Scrum Master isn’t that different.

If you’re onboarding a team where everyone is new to Scrum, you will need to provide some training and be more hands-on for a while as the team finds its rhythm. Over time though, they become more autonomous, able to run the process on their own.

While the product owner focuses on maximizing the value delivered to the product, the Scrum Master focuses on maximizing the impact of the development team.

In many ways, the Scrum Master acts as a mirror helping the team see where they are and how things are going. They also cultivate a space for the team to adjust based on what they see.

Clarity​

The Scrum Master is always working toward clarity. It may be clarifying the purpose of a Scrum event or aiding the product owner to curate and refine the backlog.

The Scrum Master acts as a mirror helping the team see where they are and how things are going.

They not only help the team understand Scrum processes and principles but others in the larger organization who interface with the team. This awareness and understanding work to cultivate an organization friendly to Scrum teams.

Servant Leader​

A servant leader puts others’ needs first. The Scrum Master provides the team with guidance and direction (where and why, but not what and how). This approach allows the team to work with a healthy level of autonomy and agency, and it also ensures the team has the mastery and purpose needed to do their work.

The Scrum Master protects the team’s health by balancing the product owner’s drive to complete the product with the team's long-term effectiveness. They help the team remove obstacles such as unclear requirements, interpersonal conflict, organizational impediments, and dependencies on other teams.

While the product owner focuses on maximizing the value delivered to the product, the Scrum Master focuses on maximizing the impact of the development team.

The Scrum Master is responsible for promoting and supporting Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. Scrum Masters do this by helping everyone understand Scrum theory, practices, rules, and values.
- The Scrum Guide

What are the responsibilities of a Scrum Master?

Coach team toward creating solutions

The Scrum Master doesn’t tell the team what to do. Nor do they solve the problems assigned to the Scrum team. But they do play a critical role in helping the team identify the problem and create solutions. Two ways the Scrum Master does this are through facilitation and practices.

The Scrum Master protects the team’s health by balancing the product owner’s drive to complete the product with the team's long-term effectiveness.

A Scrum Master as a facilitator.

To facilitate is to guide others toward a shared destination. The Scrum Master makes problem identification and solution generation easier by providing various facilitation exercises. These activities invite the whole team to engage, look at the problem differently, and collaborate to create solutions.

Here are five facilitation exercises for you to explore:

1. 5 Why’s 
2. Crazy 8s
3. Pruning the product tree

A Scrum Master as a protector of practices.

Like many legendary coaches, you might hear a Scrum Master telling the team to “trust the process.”

Practices are activities the Scrum team performs at a regular cadence. Most of them are events, such as the Daily Standup, Sprint Retrospective, or Sprint Planning. The Scrum Master doesn’t necessarily run these meetings, but they ensure they happen and are effective for their intended purposes.

Like many legendary coaches, you might hear a Scrum Master telling the team to “trust the process.” Scrum doesn’t have a ton of processes, but what it has is there for a reason. It’s to support the team in building the best products together. The Scrum Master ensures that the Scrum Team has that support.

Remove obstacles for the Scrum team.

Every team faces obstacles. On a Scrum team, the Scrum Master's role is to help remove those obstacles. Obstacles could include issues such as:

• The team does not have the tools or resources to do the necessary work.
• Functional managers are trying to assign extra responsibilities.
• Mix messages or a lack of clarity about a user story in the backlog.
• A lack of responsiveness from the Product Owner.
• Unrealistic expectations about how long the required work takes.

The Scrum Master advocates for the team's needs and works to resolve the obstacles so the team can stay focused on producing the highest value possible.

Champion Scrum across the organization

If you don’t know the rules, it’s hard to play the same game. Having coached six-year-olds playing basketball, it’s tough to play a successful game when two kids on the team still think they’re playing soccer.  

The same is true in organizations, especially when they have recently begun implementing agile practices. If executive leadership is still thinking from a waterfall approach and expects a plan detailing exactly what will be done each week for the next 18 months, their expectations won’t be met. Mismatched expectations can place unattainable requirements on the team or create confusion when reporting progress. 

Part of the responsibility of the Scrum Master is to champion Scrum across the organization to create awareness, understanding and cooperation. Here are three ways Scrum Masters can champion Scrum:

1. Provide training workshops for leaders in the organization.
2. Develop Scrum elevator pitches to effectively communicate whenever given the chance.
3. Create sharable decks to explain the basics of Scrum and your organization’s implementation of Scrum.

The other part of this responsibility is a willingness to have numerous conversations to cultivate clarity, shared understanding and empathy. 

And if you want a brief comparison of the roles of Scrum Master and Product Owner, check out this video.

Next Steps for Becoming a Scrum Master

I hope this introduction provides you with a picture of what a Scrum Master is. For a look into the everyday work of a Scrum Master, check out the posts below.

To learn more about Scrum, check out my What is Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.

Still not sure about your next step with Scrum? I offer a couple of free coaching sessions each month. You can signup for a free 1-hour coaching session, and we can work together to identify a good next step for you.