Temptations of the Scrum Master
Many people often confuse the profession of a scrum master and a project manager. In the job descriptions, we can find areas of responsibility that belong to the development team or product owner – anyone but scrum master. This leads to the fact that young specialists often perform the functions of a project manager, trying to please everyone at once and sincerely not understanding why “Scrum does not rule”. Let’s look at the common extremes, mistakes and temptations that may arise on the way to implementing Scrum.
Errand boy
This definition sounds like one of the main duties of a real scrum master: to help, teach, guide, facilitate – in a word, to be useful! But not everything is so simple. Imagine a situation when a young scrum master comes to the team, full of desire to become a fellow, join the team, so that people begin to trust and treat the new employee. In a rush of warm feelings, our newcomer begins… to solve all the problems all alone.
At first, everything looks pretty harmless.
“Listen, we have an overload here in the sprint, we don’t have time. But you’re free! Book us a meeting, please.”
“That team over there always gives us tasks pretty raw, there are still a lot of bugs in them, talk to them, please. We’re sure, you’ll do it better.”
“There’s a product owner who wants something, probably some new conditions or requirements, can you clarify it, please?”
And so on.
On the one hand, this does not seem to be something that is not the responsibility of the scrum master, on the other – half of these problems are not his/her area of responsibility at all. The team may solve many small tasks and assignments on its own. It is important to catch this balance here, so as not to become a gofer for a team that will quickly understand how convenient it is to have such a person at your disposal for eight hours every weekday.
Take a good look around: what problems are you actually solving? If your days are filled with small routine tasks that repeat from day to day, which do not change the process, but only help to facilitate the course of things, it is quite possible that you are not changing an established system, but growing into it, becoming part of it.
Focus on the problem causes, get to the bottom of the source and do not run to eliminate the consequence.
Endless circle
It looks amazing! A colorful world full of various tasks, activities, problems and meetings. So many places where your assistance is needed! There are so many meetings a day that there is no free window in the calendar! New features, Customer meetings, sprint planning, grooming sessions, business… Rushed and spun, the days are boiling with work.
But is that your job? The main goal and task of the scrum master is to change the system by improving it.
Daily activities, simple routine work – many of these tasks can be performed automatically. Agree that you do not need to study for a long time to organize a meeting, issue a ticket or book a conference room. Let’s be honest: you could have been doing all this for a long time. That’s why it’s so easy and unnoticeable to get bogged down in all this. But it is difficult to think over, analyze the work of the entire system, look for patterns, behavior errors, bottlenecks and choose suitable solutions. But that’s exactly what the scrum master’s mission is.
The scrum master’s vocation is to train the team and coach, to be a mentor, explaining the roles and rules of the game.
Master of the process
Even experienced scrum masters who have already crossed the line, beyond which it was easy to get stuck, have an Achilles heel. At a new level, the scrum master owns the process, sees it, can influence and manage it, understanding what consequences certain changes will lead to. But what kind of temptation can there be?
Omnipotence. It’s good when a scrum master knows and understands the process. But it’s even better when the specialist realizes that his/her true goal is to teach this game to the team, increase responsibility level and instill a culture for endless improvements. In this role, the scrum master can fully realize oneself as a coach or mentor and rejoice when the team is ready to sail on its own without constant support.
The rest of the team members should be able to take responsibility for the decisions they make and participate in the process. Remember: the more you present somewhere, the fewer others are there.
Mentor and teach the team to play independently, without your assistance.
Focus on the teams
Perhaps it sounds corny. We are sure that all scrum masters have read the manual, where it is written in black and white that their task is to serve not only the team and train not only it, but also the product owner and the organization. Of course, this is another level. It’s pretty safe to lock yourself in a room with a team and organize meetings, discuss features and stories on grooming, reflect on retreats… But try to visit product owners and teach them how to work with the team, show and prove that their duty is to monitor backlog transparency, to make it more understandable for each team member. Sounds scary, doesn’t it?
It is necessary to understand that not only the team can be a bottleneck in the company. Often at the initial stage, when the scrum master first comes to the company such as Andersen, he/she works a lot with the team. However, after a couple of cycles and a few sprints, when the scrum master gets comfortable and learns the process, it is likely that the situation will change, and the master will have to pay more attention to the product owner. It may turn out that the team is not (or may never have been) a bottleneck.
The scope of the scrum master covers both the product owner and the entire organization. If you focus solely on working with the team or the owner of the product, other representatives of the organization may eventually cease to perceive you as a worthy specialist and will not take your opinion into account. From the very beginning, you need to make it clear to everyone that you, as a scrum master, serve not only the team, but also provide assistance to an organization that wants to embark on the path of implementing Scrum.
Only by going through all these areas and stages at once, you will be able to achieve a good result.
Scrum master vs. Project manager
Previously we touched on the topic of the roles and responsibilities of a scrum master. Unfortunately, not only employers sometimes require these specialists to perform functions unusual for them. Many scrum masters do not fully understand the essence of Scrum and are unable to explain the meaning of Agile to the product owner, team or organization. In this case, the responsibilities for managing the backlog, prioritizing functions and stories, planning releases, telling about the value of the product, managing human resources and much more fall on the scrum master.
At the same time, maximize the value of the product, make a release plan, control the budget and match deadlines — the product owner is responsible for this all. The delivery of a high-quality working product is the task of the development team.
A self-organizing team does not need a manager. On the contrary, his/her presence will not allow the team to grow and take responsibility for their work and assessments, as well as for product quality.
We sincerely hope that this article will help novice scrum masters avoid the temptations and operating traps that will come their way. Good luck!
