What is Scrum Master?
Scrum Master is the role to be responsible for ensuring the operation of the Scrum team. The Scrum Master helps teams follow the principles and practice of work that they agree to conduct for the project to bring the best value. This role is created as part of the Scrum framework. The Scrum Master is not both the manager or the leader, but they are considered as an expert in Scrum and they can be trainer and supervisor for team.
For each role of the whole project, the Scrum Master will have different responsibilities to support. As the Product Owner, the Scrum Master is in charge of providing the technical management of Product Backlog and process of using for the whole team. Scrum Master also helps the Product Owner clarify the plan for production release and support the Scrum events as requests.
In addition, Scrum Master will be known as an agile coach so that they assist the development team method and practice under the Scrum working process. They have to follow and maintain the workflow of the team to make sure all work is well control under the process. They also clear the obstacles and connect the development team with the product owner.
Different between PM and Scrum Master
There is overlap between Scrum Master and Project Manager, but these roles are almost totally different in most projects. Mostly, a project manager will manage the project team with the responsibilities of planning, procurement, and execution of a project.
In general, Project manager (PM) is accountable for the whole process of working with the development team. The PM will take customer requests and transfer it into scope, goals, and plan to do estimation, define the timeframe, budget, and manage team members to guarantee productivity.
In contrast, Scrum Master is responsible for helping the team understand Scrum theory, principle, practice, and value. Also, Scrum Master takes requirements from clients (considered as Product Owners in Scrum) to build product backlog and define Sprint planning for each sprint.
Basically, there is a distinction between the role of Scrum Master and Project Manager in a project. However, it is no doubt that these roles are inevitable and a little overlap of these roles can be recognized in the project. You can learn more about this here.
How to be a good Scrum Master?
It is not difficult to interpret what Scrum Master’s responsibilities are, but it is a big challenge to be a proficient Scrum Master. And, these lists below consists of factors to generate a proficient Scrum Master.
- Facilitator: Scrum Master needs to be a person in order to create the environment of Scrum working process and generate good conditions for the team to work effectively in Scrum.
- Agile Coach: Scrum Master has to train and clarify the Scrum rule and process for teams to make them understand the working methodology applied in the project. Additionally, Scrum Master needs to comprehend member weakness and strength in their mindset and behavior. Since then, Scrum Master has plans to train and enhance team productivity and collaboration.
- Mentor: Scrum Master shares experiences with teams so that they can understand the value of this methodology and why a business decides to choose Scrum for working style improvement.
- Teacher: In addition to provides knowledge about Scrum, the Scrum Master plays a role as a teacher to help teams well organized under different work practices under Scrum methodology.
- Change Agent: Scrum Master is active to generate the Scrum culture as well as advanced technical thinking. In the digital era, Scrum Master has to be always ready to learn and adapt new Scrum methodology and solution to make teams consecutively innovated and evolved.
Scrum Master has never been known as an easy role in the Scrum Framework because this role requires multiple perspectives and skills from a Scrum Master. The theory is not adequate to evaluate a good Scrum Master. Instead, the real experience and flexible mindset are factors to help Scrum Master adapt to all changes in unexpected scenarios.
