Talk consists of 3 parts. Part 1 gives answer to topic's question from "theory" which is actually from the Scrum Guide + little insight into Agile Coaching. Part 2 presents my research across the world about what people say is a Scrum Master. Part 3 presents my path to this role and experience in it. At the end, I give tips to current or future Scrum Masters from my own experience.
9. is responsible for ensuring Scrum is
understood and enacted.
ensures that the Scrum Team adheres to
Scrum theory, practices, and rules.
scrumguides.org
Scrum Master
13. What is a Scrum Master?
Likes
serving
others
(not PM)
14. What the world says
is a Scrum Master?
https://www.linkedin.com/grp/post/52030-5995666453381074945#commentID_discussion%3A5995666453381074945%3Agroup%3A52030
15. A Scrum Master is NOT the team lead! I had to
repeat this at least once a day.
A Scrum Master is NOT the communicator for the
team. Any team member can talk to any stakeholder
if they desire.
A Scrum Master is NOT the decision maker for the
team.
New York, USA
16. Scrum Master is the one who drives the Agility
within team and creates a sense of trust and
transparency. He is like a Sheep dog or a servant
leader acting as a wall to prevent the team from any
deviation or interference.
Gurgaon, India
Anju Gahlawat
19. Monitoring and nudging the team towards
teamspirit and collaboration, functioning software
and team self management.
Central Region, Denmark
Thomas AC Kofoed
20. Greater Boston Area, USA
Dennis Lindenberg
...people relax and tell their truth....
...large audience simpler than grooming...
21. When I've played the role, I have played it as one who is
responsible for continuous improvement.
So there is the dull bits of calling meetings and the
more material contribution of removing obstacles and
identifying non-value-adding wastes. It's partly
practical work and partly culture work. It even gets
into personal interaction coaching sometimes. But
all-in-all, about helping the team improve value/effort
ratio.
Greater Chicago Area, USA
Tim Ottinger
22. Scrum Master’s checklist
All stakeholders needs
in backlog?
Is backlog visible to
everybody?
Is it in manageable
size?
Does PO know what is
technical debt?
...
Focus and concentration
Like each other?
Challenge each other?
Variation in Retrospectives?
Is focus on Sprint Goal stable?
Is board up-to-date?
...
Do you have automated tests?
Pair programming?
Constant refactoring?
...
Inter-team communication?
Org.impediments at
director’s office door?
Dead=Useless
Is your organization
recognized as one of the best
places to work?
...SM
http://www.scrummasterchecklist.org/pdf/ScrumMaster_Checklist_12_unbranded.pdf
PO
Team
Org
Engineering
23. What is a Scrum Master?
Likes
serving
others
(not PM)
30. R1
- 3 teams in 3 countries - component based (backend)
- 1 Scrum Master
- Scrum events - not all, people frustrated, too short cycle
- Poor groomings
- Reviews just with PO
- Huge amount of impediments (infra)
- Me and couple of PMs to CSM course (met fantastic CST!)
R2
- Invited Agile Coach. Backlog improved, Teams re-structured
- 1.5 Scrum Masters (PM in transition)
- Scrum events - all. (Delivery of Scrum workshop)
- Groomings appear to be better
- Pipeline, automation, infra - improves
- Emphasis on Retrospectives
- Reviews expand
- Impediments analyzed
- Frontend starts shining
R3
- 2 teams in 3 countries - almost independent
- Almost 2 Scrum Masters
- Management support in Scrum, UI mockups beforehand
- Monitoring, conflicts, coaching, Retrospective variations
- Reviews better
- Teamspirit. Co-location
- Feels like we start flowing...
31. I just wanted to comment from product
management point of view that I saw the demo of
configuration UI last week for the first time and I
was positively impressed where we are at the
moment. In my mind this company is now closer
than ever in the history to run the product and
implement the customer how those supposed to
be implemented in 21st century (regarding one of
our core historic product) – thanks for that. You
have gone a long way and I am sure you will be able
to deliver continuing like that.
Where we are (May)?
32.
33. What is a Scrum Master?
Likes
serving
others
(not PM)
Cares
&
doesn’t
give up
(transformer)
34. Tips for a Scrum Master
Mission, not a position - trust, respect, listen & empathize
Dedicated Scrum Master
It’s PO, Team and Organization
Get feedback from people you work with - your Review
Learn from somebody cooler than you
Learn coaching - it helps in growing others
Mentor someone
Read books, blogs, articles, LinkedIn discussions...
Pay attention to how you communicate &
your emotional intelligence
So, it seems this talk might be useful for many of you.
Interesting and all great interpretations of the SM role. For me I think of myself as the foundation of the team. Think of a house. The foundation holds everyone (room) so that they can do what they do best. A kitchen to cook in, a bathroom to use, a den to play in, and bedrooms to sleep in. Each room has its purpose as each team member brings a skill. The SM makes sure the Agile team members have their needs met in order to produce a top of the line product that adheres to the Product Owner vision. The SM is a space holder.........
How do you think, can you live without a house?
In my experience the best Scrum Masters combine aspects of arbiter, cheerleader, coach, facilitator, teacher, servant leader and standup comedian; they do in such a way as to eventually make themselves nearly dispensable on mature, performant agile teams by having fostered the team to be largely self-organizing. So yeah, planned obsolescence to a degree...
Props to @Timothy: A SM has to find a way to talk/listen to each team member and stake holder without the authority of a management title. I find that a sense of humor is essential (i.e., stand-up comedian) because once explored and discovered, people relax and tell their truth. The art form is that everyone is different. I find it easier to 'perform' in front of a large audience compared to a contentious grooming meeting.
So, 4 years ago I started as a process guy whose first task was to analyze how services are developed. What’s the development process in other words. By getting to know different services, their “teams” I soon realized that process is barely visible, teams(?) are scattered among countrie and the biggest problem was backlogs. Those were either hard to find or hard to understand.
However, there was that company wide PLM process existing with also Scum framework inside, which was constantly been improved and I was part of that as well. We basically worked on these processes on paper and delivered trainings to variety of people. But still the real work according to PLM was very siloed.
Then after around a year or so, new SDU started to form and we started to grow in Riga. I became a manager of process quality in SDU. My main task was to make sure that those processes in PLM that include SDU (Scrum), actually work and are being followed in SDU.
But I was more in a paper position and all that quality management lead actually nowhere because I was focusing more on the processes than people.
Around 2 years ago I was inside one “project” where we were investigating new possibilities of ALM solutions in TFS 2012, including Visual Studio Scrum process template + Urban Turtle - a nice TFS add-on for Agile project management - this was kind of trial to improve toolset as well for SDU and beyond.
And then this new platform project was ready to start and came into the picture and somehow I managed to put together these all things, kind of a perfect storm case and AHA moment literally happened - I realised that all is there for Scrum to work, but we are missing the Scrum Master and I moved into that immediately!
Since I have embraced Scrum and Scrum Mastering in particular, I feel a lot happier at work. I come to work with joy. I do not wait for weekends as some place in calendar to hide away. Why?
Because it feels good working with people, it feels good when you see people succeeding. It feels good when people together as a group succeed.
Because when people succeed, business succeeds too!