What is a Scrum Master?

I’m a scrum master. It’s a role I chose to adopt around 5 years ago, when I first started working on a delivery team, as a tester with limited technical ability (i.e. none), who were trying Scrum. Our tech lead had taken on the role, but he was maxed out trying to figure out the basics of the design and implementation of a huge service. I offered to take it on as a role, took to it like a duck to water, and have tried to improve how I do the role every day. I love it.

However, trying to explain what I actually do is something I struggle to convey to my non-tech friends (and even tech friends in the industry), and I end up saying something like “I’m kind-of a project manager”. Except it’s definitely not that. So what is it?

It’s not a Project Manager role

Projects, by nature, have a start and an end date. Projects have budgets and risks to be controlled. However, the agile mindset is moving “work” away from fixed time-scope-budget projects, and is gearing more towards whole-life products and services. We accept that risks have to be managed, but we do this with our team, and within the context of the wider eco-system. We can also control the budget, however, this is mainly the responsibility of a product manager/owner, whose aim is to ensure the value of all work is clearly articulated, understood by all invested parties, and ultimately realised in good products. Finally, we’re definitely not team leads — we don’t take our orders from Project Managers, delivering packets of work to schedule.

So what is it?

It’s a subtle, thoughtful role.

Really? Yes, it is. Most people are used to project managers or team leads giving the orders, and then stepping back (or worse, manage all the detail). However, in many cases, a scrum master will ask questions, then step back, and allow the team to figure out the best way. This autonomous approach can be very confusing for many people who are unfamiliar to it, and it takes a great deal of willpower by the Scrum Master not to step in and direct, but allow the team to work through their initial steps.

Scrum Masters also have to ensure safety. Safety is paramount to empowering a team; they need to know it’s ok to fail, and to continually learn better ways of doing things. Stepping in and correcting the course can kill a teams’ ability to react and change, which then removes the need for a Scrum Master in the first place.

There’s a large element of coaching too — you can’t provide conclusions, you have to aid that decision-making process. You also have to bring invested parties along on this journey; that means coaching stakeholders and wider bodies, even (especially) up to C-Level in organisations.

That still doesn’t explain what you do

Ok, fair enough. The common understanding is that the Scrum Master takes a lead role on an agile delivery team. The most common delivery methodology using agile principles is Scrum, hence Scrum Master — the person who understands the process. The Scrum Master, however, can take on this role, process-agnostic; this means if you’re choosing to use Scrum, XP, Kanban or something cool and radical that follows basic agile principles, it doesn’t matter — you have a leader and facilitator whose role is to optimise the team (and wider organisation) through coaching, remove impediments to their progress, and strive for better.

What does it take to do the role

There are many things that people assume is required for undertaking the role, however, a 2-day certification course is not that. I believe that the best Scrum Masters have the following traits that make them ideal for the role.

• Selflessness. This isn’t a role for heroes. A friend (Will Hamill) describes it as an NCO role, which I think is totally appropriate. In all war stories, it’s the officers who get the credit, yet it’s the hard-working NCO who corals the troops, gets them moving in the right direction, and when needed, provides leadership. The NCO has likely come up through the ranks, and knows the hardship of being a grunt. It’s a thankless role that means putting others over yourself, and always ensuring that you have their back. It’s referred to as servant-leadership.
• Bravery. Scrum Masters take on the physical embodiment of Change Management. And everyone hates Change Management. Change inspires fear. Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to… You, as a Scrum Master, challenge the status quo, and shine a light on the dark practices that have been business-as-usual for so long. And you have to do it in a way that is as painless as possible, or you just will not get traction. Chris Murman wrote a fab post about this recently.
• Curiosity. By this, I mean a need to explore new options and be open to new ideas. You just do not have the answers; most of the people you work with on a team are much more likely to have better ways of doing stuff than you do, they’ll be current with their craft, they’ll have a deeper understanding of how it works. And with many roles on many teams (note I’m talking about Scrum Master as a role, not Scrum as a process), you just won’t have the depth or breadth of knowledge that they have. So pose the questions, facilitate the conversations, and ensure that outcomes are agreed across the team. I would include perpetual learning as curiosity; there’s a global community out there, there’s a wealth of amazing resources to learn from. Tap into it.
• Empathy. This is a given. You need to understand people. You need to be able to listen, much more than talk. A good way to think about it is that you have 2 ears, 1 mouth, and that you should use them in proportion. Delivering solutions is hard. It’s not a fun job, although many companies like to put on frivolities to make it look it. It takes deep thinking and hard effort to get it right. Burnout is common on many delivery programmes and product teams. You need empathy to make sure that the pressures aren’t telling on your teams, and you need to understand what makes your team tick, to get the best from them. This point alone could be a spin-off post in it’s own right, there’s so much to cover.

There are many other facets to doing the role, and as stated previously, this isn’t about the process that the name comes from. A good Scrum Master understands the Agile Manifesto, understands various different processes and has a number of different tools and techniques in their kitbag they can use to get the best out of their teams.

It’s a rewarding role: there is a great deal of satisfaction in getting a team through the Forming / Storming / Norming / Performing phases and watching them thrive. However, when your team reaches Performing, and are truly Good, you’ve done your job, and it’s time to move on — and start again: the Scrum Master circle of life

If this sounds like you — good luck and be prepared, because it’s a journey.