What does a Scrum Master do?

A Scrum Master’s duties

The three most important duties include:  

1. Supporting a Product Owner.
   How does it work? A Scrum Master helps a PO find a way to define the Product Goal and manage the Product Backlog. Scrum Masters also educate the team about the Backlog. They explain how important it is to define its elements in a simple way and be ready for a quick review.
   Their support also involves empirical product planning for the complex environment. What’s more, they help to establish convenient forms of communication and cooperation between stakeholders (depending on the needs).
2. Supporting the Development Team.
   In this area, a Scrum Master is a coach for the team. Scrum Masters explain the point of self-management and cross-functionality and emphasize their importance. They remove possible impediments and make sure that all Scrum events take place. The meetings are supposed to be positive, productive, and kept within specific time frames (they can finish ahead of schedule but cannot last longer than planned).
3. Supporting the organization.
   I would say that Scrum Masters prepare the ground for Scrum. They can conduct training and coaching sessions in the field of implementing Scrum, consult the implementation of particular Scrum projects, and offer their advice in this area. The goal of Scrum Masters’ activities is to expand knowledge about Scrum – they help to understand and introduce an empirical approach to complex work. They also remove barriers between stakeholders and Scrum teams.

What else do you need to know? Scrum Masters can do exactly what the Scrum Guide tells them to do and still harm the team. Remember that the Scrum Guide provides a description of this role, but it is not a closed definition! The uncompromising Scrum Master who demands that you stick strictly to the Scrum Guide doesn’t create a very positive image in a team or an organization using Scrum. What’s the effect? Opposite to the expected. An organization may want to give up Scrum because “it is so difficult and so demanding, it requires so much time and energy, it is not for us.”

It all depends on the organization context, the team’s needs, and a Scrum Master’s feeling of what can work. No two people are the same; no two teams are the same. Not every practice works well everywhere. Let’s imagine it by using the example of a school. Not every student in the class has the same learning style, yet most teachers teach in a traditional way. Then, visual learners find it difficult to listen to the story of the Battle of Grunwald for 45 minutes because, at some point, their attention runs out. Therefore, they have to make extensive, colorful notes after class to remember all the details before the upcoming test. The same applies to Scrum teams. A talkative person may want to take over the entire Retrospective. The role of the Scrum Master is not to let this person talk for 45 minutes – it’s not a moment to be happy that someone is active. The trick is to run meetings that encourage the most reserved people to be active and contribute to the discussion without forcing them to do what they don’t want to do.

Being a Scrum Master does not only mean organizing meetings or conducting them (even though this is a common opinion). It also requires the ability to get the feel of the team and to lead the people until they become self-sufficient. That’s what our role is all about. Sometimes you have to be a mediator, sometimes a rubber duck, other times a judge or a good aunt. The ultimate goal is to make us no longer necessary 🙂