Scrum Masters are core to creating an environment to help teams be as effective as possible. They are responsible for ensuring the team lives up to the Agile values and principles. The team is their primary focus. What should a Scrum Master do when an individual on the team is struggling and the focus on the team is not an effective response? Mentoring leverages skills that Scrum Masters practice every day but it is different in some key dimensions. This deck supports a conversation between Laura Richardson as she talked with Syndey Kimball, CSM about her mindset shift from Scrum Master to Mentor. The conversation was enriched by Monica Cassman, the mentee who worked directly with Sydney as they took the journey together. The webinar covered: 1) Review the characteristics of the Certified ScrumMaster role 2) Explore the role of Mentor 3) Learn from Monica about how she benefited from the Mentor/Mentee relationship 4) Discuss steps that Scrum Masters can take to add Mentor skills and tools to their own toolkit

1. Mentoring: An Untapped Scrum Master Super Power
1
Sydney Kimball
Adv. Certified ScrumMaster
American AgCredit
Monica Cassman
Business Analyst
American AgCredit
Laura Richardson
Webinar Host
SVP, Applied Frameworks
For more info, visit: https://appliedframeworks.com

2. The Scrum Master Role
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The Scrum Master helps the Scrum
Team perform at their highest level. They
also protect the team from both internal
and external distractions. Scrum Masters
hold the Scrum Team accountable to
their working agreements, Scrum values,
and to the Scrum framework itself.
Scrum Masters serve the development
team, the product owner and the
organization.
Scrumalliance.org
Coach
Help
Facilitate
Serve
Advocate

3. When does a Scrum Master coaching role shift to
mentoring?
3
We coach
teams
We mentor
individuals

4. Our story: the triggers
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Disorganized
Backlog
Suddenly “BA
Lead”
Too many
assignments
Fear of being
kicked off team

5. How Scrum Master training prepares us for mentoring
● Servant Leadership means we serve the team and everyone on it
● Our responsibilities include
○ Establishing and maintaining a comfortable team working environment
○ Coaching agile practices
○ Ensuring all team member efforts are visible to team (via Sprint backlog or other
means)
● We have tools! Facilitation skills, retrospective games, frameworks and
tricks to help identify team member concerns
5

6. Our good working relationship helped
● We had a trusting working relationship already
● Regular check-ins
○ Weekly Zoom touch bases
○ Private chat we used regularly
○ Impromptu touch bases as needed
● Monica had a strong growth mindset
● We shared a desire for the team to succeed
● Our mentorship focused on encouragement without directive management
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7. Role clarification and goal alignment
● What are you responsible for?
● What are you accountable for?
● What are other team members (Product Owner, Developer, Tester,
ScrumMaster) responsible or accountable for?
● What authority do you have to push back?
○ Expectation that Work in Progress limit is respected
○ Require more information from others
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8. Frameworks can help
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My Worst Nightmare, an Innovation GameⓇ
Moi Canvas, Masa Maeda

9. Consider Kanban to limit work in progress for
improvement
9
Possibilities Better
Possibilities
The rest
Try Next Doing Done
WIP Limits (less than 5)

10. Recommendations
● Don’t wait!
○ Reach out early
○ You do not need to be formally trained to be a mentor!
● Put yourself in the other person’s shoes to gain trust - we are all human
● Be sincere, be curious, be available & prompt
● Be patient, don’t expect a quick turnaround, peeling the onion takes a while
● Frameworks help to make sense of overwhelming situations and empower
people
10

11. 11

12. Thank you!
12
Sydney Kimball
Adv. Certified ScrumMaster
American AgCredit
Monica Cassman
Business Analyst
American AgCredit
Laura Richardson
Webinar Host
SVP, Applied Frameworks
Email: lrichardson@appliedframeworks.com
Phone: (415) 265-2200