The Scrum Guide explicitly defines team roles. We all are aware of the product owner roles. He or she is the one who envisions products and team members write and check code, but what is the role of Scrum Master? As per the Scrum Guide, the role of a scrum master is to ensure that Scrum is implemented correctly within the team. But, every team member does this on a self-organising team. How does a scrum team take servant leadership? Does a scrum team need a proclaimed leader or designated servant? The role of the scrum master is very controversial.
Is a Scrum Master a natural leader? Does he/she lay the foundation for a career or is it a stepping stone? This is a common question that I believe every scrum master asks himself/ herself at some point in time when his/ her team becomes mature and more self-organised in agile development and its implementation.
The Responsibilities of the Scrum Master are:
Facilitates the team
The ScrumMaster works with the team regularly, helping at every step of project development to perform better. He/She promotes different scrum ceremonies or events. Further, the ScrumMaster takes care that the team follows the Scrum process means it should be cross-functional and self-organized. Though scrum framework does not involve a discrete testing team of engineers, if be present then the responsibility is of scrum master to build the team.
Tutor
The ScrumMaster guides the team about Scrum and how it works. He/She tries helping team members and improves their technical skills in whatever way he/she feels comfortable.
Referee
The Scrum Master acts as a referee in exaggerated disputes whether they are internal and external disputes that impact the team. This is one of the primary responsibilities the facilitator role but is common because it needs to be called out separately. Typically for startups which have just implemented agile, the scrum master duty is to portray agile and scrum with a simplified approach so that the team love implementing agile.
Conscience
When it comes to team values, the ScrumMaster acts as the conscience of the Team. If a team member does not live the values, then the ScrumMaster should make the fact visible and try to do everything to make them understand the team values.
The first Who Senses Everything (Right or Wrong)
The ScrumMaster is like ‘canary in the coal mine’ during the implementation of Scrum process. If things do not work in a way as they should, the ScrumMaster should be able to track it first and bring into notice of the team and try to resolve every issue that his/her team has.
Eliminates Impediment
Initially, your team is likely to face some problems if they are new to agile. Here the ScrumMaster should manage the impediments that come in the way of the Scrum framework so that the team can work at the full potential resulting in a quality oriented product. The ScrumMaster should empower and encourage the team so that the members can manage impediments on their own. He/She should work in liaison with the Product Owner, Business Owner, or others in the company to understand their issues and help to overcome them.
Maintains connections
How the Scrum Master brings his/her skills to the team makes a difference. The Scrum Master carries the better understanding of the organisation and therefore acts as a bridge to help the organisation adapt to the team and help the team adapt to the organisation. This bridge works better when the product owner and the Scrum Master work in tandem with each other.
How Scrum Master serves to the Product Owner
The ScrumMaster helps the product owner in various ways. He/she finds techniques to bring out effective Product Backlog Management; making the scrum team understand the requirement for explicit Product Backlog items; understands product planning in an empirical atmosphere; helping product owner manage the product backlog while increasing value; understanding the principles of agile manifesto; guides the product owner to verify the flow of user stories towards the top of the product backlog are prepared for the sprint backlog.
How the Scrum Master serves to the Development Team
The ScrumMaster works for the Development Team in various ways, like:
guiding the development team in cross-functionality and self-organization; motivating the development team to develop high quality products; eliminating impediments to the development team’s success; facilitating Scrum events when required; guiding the development team in organizational environments so that they can adopt Scrum easily; ensuring that development team keeps up commitment to the Definition of Done; keeping a check that the team is following follow agile manifesto values ; prepares the Scrum Team to write and break down User Stories with acceptance of everyone; helps the Scrum Team to accept, follow and commit to Agile practices, for instance, continual improvement.
How the Scrum Master Serves the Organisation
The ScrumMaster helps the organization in various ways, like:
helping the organisation in its Scrum adoption; planning Scrum implementations; guiding stakeholders understand Scrum and empirical product development; promoting those changes that increase the productivity of the Scrum Team; meeting with other Scrum Masters to empower the effectiveness of Scrum implementation; maintaining transparency to all levels of company of the Scrum Team’s historical and pertinent Sprint’s work in operation.
You will get answers to all questions by understanding the roles and responsibilities that Scrum Master performs in the team. If you want to evolve as the Scrum Master, then CSM training is the solution for you
