Everything You Need to Know About a Scrum Master

Teams can handle projects in a variety of industries with the use of the agile project management methodology called Scrum. Scrum, like other techniques, can only be useful to organizations when properly implemented. A scrum master can help in this situation.

What is a Scrum Master?

A scrum master is in charge of making sure the scrum is properly applied inside an organization. To do this, the scrum master works with organizations to establish a scrum framework, which consists of meetings, roles and responsibilities, techniques, and tools essential for a successful scrum process.

Not every team member will comprehend the same scrum concepts, such as sprints, product backlogs, or user stories. For teams new to scrum project management, this is especially true.

Without a scrum master promoting and supporting the process and helping product owners and team members understand the theory, practice, rules and values of scrum, the project can flounder and fail.

To collaborate with teams and help them plan, schedule and track their work, scrum masters need project management softwares.

What Does a Scrum Master Do?

While a scrum master is a crucial member of the scrum project management team, a scrum master doesn’t act as a project manager; a scrum team is self-organizing. In fact, a scrum master isn’t responsible for the success of the project.

The scrum master has several roles and responsibilities in a project. One way to look at the scrum master is as a servant leader. They’re not part of a hierarchy, giving orders or demanding ROI.

Instead, they take a more holistic approach to product development or software development, offering their scrum project management knowledge to others while promoting a sense of community and supporting a shared decision-making power inside the scrum team.

Scrum Master Roles

Here are some of the main roles of a scrum master:

• The scrum master serves the product owner by making sure that the goals, scope and product domain are clear to everyone on the scrum team.
• Scrum masters offer agile project management techniques and tools to manage the product backlog effectively and help the scrum team members know that there is a need to prioritize urgent user stories in the product backlog.
• The scrum master plays constantly dispenses information to project stakeholders about where the current agile sprint and product or software development effort stand. This can be done via the various scrum artifacts (i.e. product backlogs, scrum meetings to burndown charts) and common-sense project management communication efforts.
• Scrum masters also know project planning in an empirical environment. Naturally, a scrum master is adept at planning agile sprints and can lead agile teams. They’re responsible for setting up scrum meetings as needed to direct or pass on information about the process.

Scrum Master Responsibilities

When it comes to scrum master responsibilities, the main goal of a scrum master is to act as an agile coach, helping scrum teams to self-organize and work cross-functionally to better manage their product backlog and maximize their efficiency. Here are some of the core responsibilities of a scrum master.

• Scrum masters assist with getting the team to create a high-value product by removing obstacles in their scrum process and coaching them through daily scrum meetings or other venues when help is needed.
• Use scrum tools such as scrum boards to manage the team’s workload
• The scrum team should be able to count on the scrum master to clear the path ahead of them, by removing roadblocks or prioritizing user stories in the product backlog. This will allow them to focus on the user stories that are currently on their plate to get them done as efficiently and effectively as possible.
• Finally, the scrum master also helps the organization by leading and coaching the transition into a scrum framework. In this capacity, the scrum master will lead change that increases the productivity of the team while working with other scrum masters and product owners to help foster the use of the scrum methodology throughout the organization.

Now that we’ve looked at the main scrum master roles and responsibilities, let’s see how they compare to project managers and product managers.

Scrum Master vs. Project Manager vs. Product Owner

Both scrum masters and product owners are involved in the process of managing the product backlog of an agile project. They’re both aware of the user stories that are needed to deliver a successful product.

But the main difference between them is how they contribute to the scrum process. Product owners plan in the medium or long term while scrum masters are concerned about the daily performance of scrum teams.

Project managers are responsible for developing project plans that have all the project management guidelines to successfully manage projects, which cover areas such as scheduling, planning, risk management, among others.

How to Become a Scrum Master

What’s the pathway to becoming a scrum master? The most linear course to becoming a scrum master is through formal scrum master training and certification. There are several organizations that offer scrum master certification programs.

For example, the Project Management Institute (PMI) has a scrum master training program called “Disciplined Agile Scrum Master” (DASM) which certifies you as a professional scrum master.

Similarly, the Scrum Alliance offers a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) distinction that teaches the candidate how to get scrum teams to work at their highest levels.

Scrum Master Certifications

Scrum master training programs teach the fundamentals of scrum project management and help one become intimate with what the scrum team roles are, what events are and what artifacts are, among other fundamental aspects of scrum.

Disciplined Agile Scrum Master (DASM) by PMI

This scrum master training course will certify you as a scrum master who’s capable of leading agile teams and implementing project management methodologies like agile, kanban, lean and scrum.

• DASM Requirements: This scrum training program doesn’t have any entry requirements. The PMI created it for people who are unfamiliar with scrum but want to obtain a scrum master certification.
• DASM Certification Exam: You’ll need to answer questions about agile and lean methodologies, kanban and scrum project management techniques.

Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) by Scrum Alliance

A CSM is a professional scrum master who’s capable of applying scrum project management techniques across industries and implementing scrum processes in projects and organizations.

• Certified ScrumMaster Requirements: The requirements for CSM certification are fairly minimal. First, have some familiarity with the scrum framework. Then there’s a two-day, 16-hour course, which is taught by a Certified Scrum Trainer, who provides an overview of how to organize and support a scrum team.
• ScrumMaster Certification Exam: The test covers the history of scrum and the basics of the process. Topics include product backlogs, planning releases, problems that can occur, scalability, scrum roles, sprints, how to conduct daily scrum meetings, tasks, reports and team organization.

Professional Scrum Master (PSM)

The Professional Scrum Master (PSM) certification by Scrum.org is a two-day course that will teach you the basics of Agile and Scrum and how you can apply these methodologies in your organization. In addition to this, Scrum.org offers two more certification programs, PSM II and PSM III, which build upon the knowledge from PSM and expand your abilities as a scrum master.

SAFe Scrum Master (SSM)

This scrum master training is designed for those who want to help organizations implement agile and scrum at scale. It not only teaches about the different tools and techniques a scrum master should know about but also focuses on leadership.

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