For the years that I have worked as Scrum Master, I’ve heard many opinions and ideas about the role. Some of them are a little bit far from what the role really is, like when I hear that we are “the boss,” and some others are closer to reality, such as Scrum Masters are leaders meant to help.
One day I was assigned to a new project as the Scrum Master. After the kickoff meeting with the team members, I identified the need of having a training session about the Scrum framework so everyone could be on the same page and understand how the daily work was going to be.
Why did I decide to have that session?
None of the team members in our client had ever worked with the framework before. Only the Project Lead was aware of how to use a scrum with teams, but surprisingly, he had never planned this kind of session with the team because of a lack of time. He and the stakeholders had the expectation for the team members to be able to work agile and implement the framework.
“I truly believe the Scrum Master role has different “flavors,” and all of them are needed.”
During my presentation, I showed this image to represent the Scrum Master role. The Project Lead asked me why I used this image. He thought it was a funny one, and my answer has always been the same: “I truly believe the Scrum Master role has different “flavors,” and all of them are needed.”
For the years that I have worked as Scrum Master, I’ve heard many opinions and ideas about the role. Some of them are a little bit far from what the role really is, like when I hear that we are “the boss,” and some others are closer to reality, such as Scrum Masters are leaders meant to help.
The different opinions probably come from the other experiences they have had with a Scrum Master in past projects, so today, I’ll talk about my experience and “flavor” and the work I’ve been doing at MAS Global with different clients. Here are some tips for you as a client, team member, or person interested in this beautiful, agile world to understand what kind of flavors you can find in a Scrum Master role and why they are so important for organizations.
When Scrum Masters start a new project, it is super important to have everyone in the same boat, understanding the game’s expectations, goals, and rules. In the story that I was telling at the beginning of this blog, I became a teacher. The only way to ensure that the team was going to work with the framework and understand the different ceremonies was to train them on this.
Starting with a new way of doing things is never easy for a team, especially when you have some work to do in a short time and you’re also requested to follow some new rules and calls you were not expecting. It’s easy as a team member to leave the project, but if you have a Scrum Master coaching, guiding, and serving in anything you might need, you’ll recognize that the change is not that hard. It Is even more organized, and the answers you need are coming super easy because you now have a Scrum Master working to remove your impediments and facilitate your work life.
The answers probably won’t come directly from the Scrum Master because we don’t necessarily have a technical background. Still, for sure, we will find who can bring the answers or help the team as they were expecting, so here we can perform the role of a servant leader, though being a servant doesn’t mean that we always say yes to everything. When we see that some decisions are being taken without considering all scenarios and the requested work is not ideal and won’t bring value to the project, the response must be, “No!”
We advise our clients on decisions, so we look for the best option to bring more gains for the project. We recommend our teams to give 100% and MORE all the time because we know that the secret of a successful project is having a successful team, able to raise their voices and give opinions and solutions when something is requested and is not correct or not the best option. In the end, we build more than a client relationship; we build partnerships, and therefore we CARE so much about success in all projects we work on.
Finally, I love to think that when we perform the role of a Scrum Master effectively, with all its flavors, at some point, we won’t be needed by anyone on the team because we have already built a structure of people that know what to do when to do it and how to do it without needing anyone to remind them. Our Scrum Master mission can be summed up by saying that we are meant to guide and enable teams of people to maximize their potential and to keep learning how to give MAS. As we like to say at MAS Global, MAS is More!