A – Z of Scrum Master

Scrum Master is a leadership role, it is not a manager or boss position. Scrum Master has to enable people and help them to create an environment for the team to become more empowered, ready to take up challenges and learn from failures. In this article, you will learn what are A-Z characteristics of Scrum Master to become effective in that role.

Awareness creator: People will be more effective if they know “why” they are doing “what” they are doing. Scrum Master should create this awareness in the people to know the “Purpose” of the work they are doing.  

Bold: Courage is one of the Scrum values. Scrum Master should be bold enough to go to any level in the organization in order to create a “Safe to fail” environment for the team. When people have an open environment, they will take more challenges and be able to learn faster. Leading change at organization level such as support teams like HR, Finance, Admin, Infrastructure teams and the leadership team is possible by being bold. So Scrum Masters have to be bold in their role.

Coach: Telling solutions is easy, but asking to help people to find their solutions is challenging. Scrum Master should be a coach at team level and also at the leadership level. In order to be a coach, Scrum Master should demonstrate coaching competencies and practice powerful questions.  Practicing some change management models such as GROW will be useful in becoming an effective Coach.

Dynamic: A Scrum Master should be dynamic to succeed in the role. There is a lot of collaboration across multiple units in the Organization and within the teams. So being dynamic will help Scrum Master to drive the collaboration and improve transparency.

Enabler: Enabling the team will help them to be taking decisions on their own and they will be more open to do experiments. So Scrum Master should know how to enable the team by understanding their behavior patterns and also bridge the gaps between teams and the leadership.

Facilitator: Knowing different facilitation techniques will help Scrum Master to create an environment to make consensus driven decision making. 

Gardener: A gardener creates an environment for the plants to grow freely. Scrum Master is also the same, he/she needs to create an environment to help the team to grow freely. 

Humble: Being humble creates a healthy and collaborative environment. Scrum Master is not a people management role, instead it is a people enabling role. So humbleness will be helpful in leading the team without authority.

Impediments remover: Not all impediments are to be addressed by Scrum Master. Where the team does not have power, ability or knowledge (Global/Systemic impediments) are the focus of the Scrum Master. At the same time, help the team to improve their power, ability and knowledge in resolving the impediments on their own will help to expedite the product development.

Joyful: How the team feels will impact how they perform. So Scrum Master should create a joyful environment within the team. This will help improving teamwork, rapport and collaboration within the team eventually.

Kaizen: Meaning of Kaizen is “Change for Good”. So Scrum Master should help teams and organizations to understand the need for change and help in driving the change.

Listener: Listening is very important in coaching. Scrum Master should practice the 3 levels of listening: Internal listening, Listening to understand and Global listening. Scrum Master should be able to listen for feelings, emotions.

Mirror: A mirror does never judge people. It reflects what you are. Similarly the Scrum Master also should reflect the team without being judgemental. Help them to identify what they are and to support them to become better.

Neutral: One of the important characteristics for a Scrum Master is to be neutral. Being neutral will help to become an effective facilitator. This also will create Respect and Trust for Scrum Master at the team.

Observer: Observation helps Scrum Master to identify coaching opportunities. Observing the team on how they communicate, collaborate, interact and resolve the issues on their own will give Scrum Master to come up with approaches to address any issues within the team.

Protector: Protecting the team from external interruptions will create undivided attention and focus to the Sprint goal. So Scrum Master should protect the team from interruptions.

Quick: Scrum Master should be “Quick” in a few things such as identifying conflicts in the team and to resolve them quickly, getting the Global/Systemic impediments resolved quickly, learning new things for facilitation, coaching models and so on.  

Reachable: Scrum Master should be reachable to the team and the Product owner as and when they need Scrum Master’s services. Scrum Master has specific services to the Product Owner, Development Team and organization, so being reachable will be of most important. 

Servant Leader: Leading with selflessness will create trust for the team, so that the team will become more transparent.

Trainer: Training is one of the important qualities of Scrum Master. Especially when organization is going through Agile transformation, Scrum Master has to provide Training support to the teams. So learning Training techniques will be helpful. You can explore concepts such as “Training from the Back of the Room (TBR)”.

Unconditional: In order to be a Servant Leader, Scrum Master should be unconditional. Being unconditional will help Scrum Master to gain Trust of the Team.

Visionary: Scrum Master should channelize TEam’s effort in the right direction. In order to achieve this, Scrum Master should be a Visionary and should be able to create a common purpose (goal) for the team to demonstrate teamwork.

Wholehearted: Sincerity and commitment makes Scrum Master a wholehearted person. Commitment towards team’s success and sincerely supporting the team in achieving success defines the Scrum Master’s character.

Xpert in Scrum: Scrum Master should be a Scrum expert, then only he/she will be able to identify extreme customizations (anti-patterns) that lead to dysfunctions within the team and organization.

Yare: Meaning of “Yare” is characterized by speed and agility. Scrum Master her/himself should be agile in his thinking, behavior and actions. Without you being agile, you can help others to be agile.

Zealous: Showing zeal is very important for the Scrum Master in creating an active and lively environment within the team.