| Coaching and Mentoring | ||
| The Scrum Master’s primary focus is to ensure that all team members are well trained in Agile processes and understand what is expected of them. This helps the development team and managers understand each part’s respective roles, imparts a sense of shared project ownership, and helps teams self-manage without excessive oversight. | Host daily stand-up meetingsDaily Scrum meetings last no longer than 15 minutes. Those involved simply answer the following questions as concisely as possible:What did you do yesterday? | What will you do today? |
What is impeding your progress?
It may seem simple, but this meeting helps individual team members understand where they fit into the big picture and helps break down traditional siloed work structures. Importantly, the Scrum Master can note any obstacles that may keep the team from completing tasks and use their own intuition to devise newer, better ways of working using the information given.
For example, if team members are being pulled into too many unimportant meetings, the Scrum Master can work with organisers to determine who needs to attend the meetings. Or, if a team member is being assigned tasks on multiple teams, the Scrum Master can work with stakeholders to redistribute the workload.
Product backlog managementThe Scrum Master helps the Product Owner refine and maintain the product backlog using the information gathered from the daily stand-up meetings.
The product backlog is a live document that changes based on the current status and development needs. The Scrum Master can assist with the product backlog by scheduling meetings and writing
user stories
.
Agile Scrum Masters
My team uses agile to organise their day-to-day work, do I need a Scrum Master?
A Scrum team must have a Scrum Master. Without one, you are doing something just shy of true Scrum, often called ‘Scrum-but.’
A general misunderstanding of the Scrum Master role often leads existing agile managers to assume it is their role. To better understand why this can be a problem, let’s compare the Scrum Master to non-Scrum agile roles you may already have in your organisation, and why it’s important to keep the role separate.
Scrum master vs. product manager
It is generally encouraged for the product manager to involve themselves as much as possible in the
Scrum Development
Team’s activities. A Product Owner should champion customer needs.
Whereas a Product Owner answers the question of ‘why?’, Scrum Masters are tasked with answering the question of ‘how?’
Reinforcement
to sustain changeExample: In a software roll-out, employees learned why the upgrade was essential (Awareness, Desire), received hands-on workshops (Knowledge, Ability), and were rewarded for adoption (Reinforcement).Change management challenges
Organisations frequently encounter obstacles when managing change. Common challenges include:Resistance to change: Employees may fear job loss, uncertainty, or increased responsibilities.