Being a Scrum Master

Being a Scrum Master myself, I have tried to capture my role in a few sentences. It's part of the "about me" page on my personal website. According to the Scrum Guide, I also emphasize offering services to the Development Team, Product Owner, and organization (from the perspective of the Scrum Team).

As a Scrum Master...

I believe in servant leadership at all levels of an organization and with that my attention is in creating successful teams with a safe working environment, self-organize and cross-functional and innovative to drive continuous improvement. I support Product Owners in visualizing progress, creating a transparent Product Backlog, and maximizing the value of the product. I also work closely with the organization in making Scrum successful by supporting management in changing processes, procedures, culture, and behavior. Using Agile Values and Principles of Agile as well as the values of Scrum, I try to ensure the spirit of Scrum is truly understood and teams are aiming to be agile rather than doing agile.

I help to aspire Agile & DevSecOps practitioners in the field and those willing to jumpstart their careers as Scrum Master, Products Owner, DevOp Engineers, Business Analysis as a career coach.

A great Scrum Master...

• Ensures the entire team supports the chosen Scrum process.

• Manages the impediments that exceed the self-organizing capabilities of the team and it prevents them from achieving the Sprint Goal.

• Recognizes healthy team conflict and promotes constructive disagreement.

• Is prepared to be disruptive enough to enforce a change within the organization.

• Understands the power of self-organization.

• Understands the value of a steady sprint rhythm and do everything to create and maintain it.

• Knows how to truly listen and is comfortable with silence.

• Understands the strength of coaching and has learned some powerful questions by heart.

• Teaches the Product Owner on how to maximize ROI and meet objectives.

• Is also competent with XP, Kanban, and Lean.

The Most Important Part

So far, I have described the services a Scrum Master offers according to the Scrum Guide, the personal description I use, and some characteristics of a great Scrum Master. Hopefully, this will already offer you some insights on what a Scrum Master is doing during the day.

But... I probably have not yet clarified the title of this blog post "A Day in the Life of a Scrum Master". That is because I have not mentioned the most important part of the Scrum Master role...

First: A Scrum Master should always prevent a fully booked schedule. A smart Scrum Master has lots of free space in his/her agenda. The more the better.

As a daily preparation a Scrum Master could consider questions like:

• How is my Product Owner doing?

  • Is the Product Backlog in shape?

  • How is he/she managing the stakeholders?

  • What about delivering business value and return-on-investment?

• How is the Development Team doing?

  • Are they working together?

  • Is there conflict in the team, do they resolve that?

  • Is the team making decisions?

• How are our engineering practices doing?

  • Is the team caring and improving them?

  • How is the test automation?

  • Is the team expanding their Definition of Done?

• How is my organization doing?

  • Is there inter-team coordination?

  • What organizational impediments are in the way?

  • What about the HR practices?

Of course, these are not the only questions to consider. These are just some examples based on the LeSS training I've attended. Continuously refreshing the questions to determine my daily schedule as a Scrum Master, has become a sort of a habit for me.

A Day in the Life of a Scrum Master

• Start the day with an open and curious mind (and in my case some good coffee)

• A good first question to consider is "How can I improve the lives of my Scrum Team  members by facilitating creativity and empowerment?"

• Check the Burn Down chart before heading to the Daily Standup 

• Remember: your agenda is as good as empty! Except for the Daily Scrum and maybe some other Scrum events

• You attend the Daily Scrum as an observer and or Participant  You listen to what is and is not being said. 

• Ensure to share what you have been working on and what you might be doing during the day to hello the team

• You consider some of the questions mentioned earlier.

• Based on your observations you determine your next steps. This might be coaching, consulting, teaching, facilitating, mentoring, managing, problem-solving, conflict navigating or... just sitting with the team, listening, and watching the team.

• Facilitate the meeting after

• Doing "nothing" is a perfect activity for a Scrum Master! The biggest pitfall for a Scrum Master is being too busy and not noticing what is really going on.

In this blog post, I have shared my view on the question "What is a Scrum Master actually doing during the day?" I have used different sources and perspectives to answer this question and, in the end, finally clarified the title and described a day in the life of a Scrum Master.

If you are a Scrum Master as well, does this blog post make any sense to you? How would you describe a day in the life of a Scrum Master? Of course, I am also curious to the opinions of people not fulfilling this role.

Have a great day!