Scrum master的角色和职责

SM Role - in a nutshell

• Scrum coach, scrum process expert
• Servant leader
• Empower
• Protector (dev team, scrum process/practice)
• Solution mind.
• Micro-management (process, our way) ??
• “Doctor”
• “Firefighter”
  • Facilitator
  • Blocker remover
• Monitor
• Communicator
• Soft skills
• Admin

Some mindsets changes after discussion:

• From “1. what we think to include”, changed to “4. not in scope”
  • Make decisions for team
  • Bad cop: to command or merely push team to finish per what client told.
  • Help team with their work if they need.
    • SM cannot do dev work, even they have such ability.
  • Set goals for team
    • Facilitate to come to agreement of goals, but not set goals
    • PO <> Dev team
• From “1. what we think to include”, changed to “3. Better-haves”
  • Control quality
  • Good understanding of business requirement

What should include

• Facilitate

  • Scrum ceremonies
    • Sprint planning
    • Daily standup
    • Sprint review (could be demo)
    • Retrospective
    • …
  • Remove blocker for team
  • Communication
    • Team collaboration with stakeholders
    • Team in a loop.
  • Agreement on
    • definition of done
    • on what can be achieved, during specific time
    • …
  • Maintain sustainable output, deliver value
  • Use of agile techniques, process, approaches
  • Timeline planning for deploy, testing, release, live…
  • Facilitates the team’s progress toward team goals

• Coaching & support

  • Continuous improvement methods
  • Efficient and effective communication
  • Help team to visualize task, progress, plan, like Kanban, task board, burn-down chart…
  • Help team evolve scrum tools, well-informed of latest effective tools, trendy approaches or ways of doing scrum.
  • Help team understand goals, priorities, requirement (to hep clarify, to put together, ensure all clear)
    • shared understanding, willing to share, contribute the framework
    • proof
    • well-documented
    • baseline
  • Observe, listen and evaluate, suggestion to improve scrum process, help to setup and suggest best practices, and track Documentation
  • Supports the Product Owner – The Scrum Master helps the Product Owner in their efforts to manage the backlog and guide the team while facilitating a healthy team dynamic with respect to priorities and scope.
  • Team & Resources
    • Encourage and maximize the potential
    • Coach and mentor team of scrum practices
    • Advocate self-organizing, self-driven
    • Help team identify the best work assignment autonomously
      • Better let dev self-pick tickets
        • But to see difficulty, workload, who ever did it, etc, to avoid
          • Senior dev who is capable, but only take “easy task”
          • Junior dev is assigned with “demanding task”
      • can ask a few questions
    • Performance assessment??
      • Scrum process rating.
      • individual
        • For Dev:
          • Scrum process: SM
            • Scrum practice
            • Collaboration
              • Comm
              • Being active
          • Technical
            • Completion
              • Speed
              • Quality
              • Solution
        • For SM:
          • PO, Dev Team
      • SM is micro-management, should SM entitled to score KPI for team?
      • Suggestion: better to setup a assessment that is quantitive or democratic way, then all scrum team to embrace and follow the assessment way. (but risky if it has limitation)

• Protect

  • Protect team from outside interruption
  • Mediate conflicts, promote collaboration

• Encourage

  • Direct and effective communication
  • Team self-organization and accountability
  • Transparency, openness
    • Let team be seen and heard, fulfilled, rewarded, help each other
    • Careful:
      • also to avoid unnecessary interruption, like unrelated
      • Sensitive info that is not fit for transparency to client

• Reward

  • Show appreciation when team done well
  • Show pride if there is achievement
  • Celebrate with team after successful launch, to make memorable moment

What’s better-have (big plus)

• Big picture, “global sight”
• Understand basic tech logic, architecture etc…
  • But:
    • It has converse impact, if SM just make decision for scrum team, based on his/her knowledge, without confirming with team.
• Understand commercial demands
• Product mind.
• Testing basic knowledge
• Quality assessment knowledge

What’s not included

• Not a project lead or project manager
  • means not to command or give orders
  • has no real power
• Do not make decisions for the team.
• Bad cop: to push team to hit deadline, under pressure of client request.
  • Most of time, it’s a “balance art”, but not right to just pressurize dev team
    • One hand to let client understand workload and root cause of “mission impossible”
    • On other hand, to check with devs team if achievable.
• Not accountable for outcomes??
  • For scrum process, yes
    • For whole project, team owns it.
  • By theory, it’s not, as it’s team accountable, to let team feel they own it.
  • But in reality, makes more sense, also accountable just like other devs, as a team

Some Q&As:

• Who makes the decision? SM?
  • Answer: no, but to suggest, ask questions, remind, to facilitate to come to an agreement
• Who decides the story points? What if SM cannot judge if it is reasonable or not?
• Does the SM just take instruction from client?
  • Answer: no, SM needs has independent thinking, and propose the best practice.
• Project manager vs. Scrum master:
  • Metaphors
    • PM: likes father (make decisions); SM: likes mum (coach, consulting, caring, assisting)
    • PM: to lead the team; SM: likes to guide or facilitate team
  • Some PM make manage project in a SM way, but SM not expected to manage team in a PM way.
  • Sometimes SM can ask “stupid technical questions”, to avoid awkwardness for dev, or expose any short in tech side.