What does the Scrum Master do all day? This is one of the most common questions
I have gotten either from the Scrum Team members, the management and even from
people from other departments. Well, actually you can say that almost
everyone in the company I have worked with has asked me: "What does the Scrum
Master do all day?". According to Scrum Guide 2020, the Scrum Master has two
accountabilities. First, establish Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. And second,
the Scrum team's effectiveness. You can click the link up here to watch the
video I've already made that elaborates the Scrum Master accountabilities ... if
you haven't watched that video. The Scrum Guide also says that the Scrum Master is
a true leader who serves. But that doesn't mean the Scrum Master becomes
the personal assistant for the Scrum team who schedule the Scrum events or
write down and detail the Product Backlog items or even write down the
meeting notes or even fix any technical issues that occur in the production
environment. Even though there aren't any textbooks that explain in detail what
the Scrum Master should do all day, from the Scrum Guide we can list down 8 hats
the Scrum Master should wear before taking any action. The Scrum Master wears
the right hat depending on the situation and the circumstances that occur. It
takes mastery for the Scrum Master to know which hat they should wear. The
first hat that the Scrum Master wears is the teacher hat. Quite often the Scrum
Master teaches the theories and the agile practices that complement Scrum
such as Kanban or DevOps or Nexus or Evidence-Based Management, etc. In fact,
not only teaching these people complementary practices, the Scrum Master
may need to teach people in the company what Scrum is all about, the values and
principles behind it, and how to implement it in day-to-day work. The
purpose of teaching is to fill up the empty cup and to transfer knowledge. The
second hat that the Scrum Master wears is the mentor hat. Unlike the teacher hat,
which mostly focuses on theories and practices, when the Scrum Master wears
the mentor hat, the Scrum Master tells stories based on their personal
experience from the past on how they would tackle similar situation that
people are currently facing. The purpose of mentoring is to give insights or a
different perspective so people in the company have a starting point to come up
with their own solution. The third hat that the Scrum Master wears is the
coach hat. Coaching is a technique to guide people to discover their own solution
through active listening and asking powerful questions. When people come up
with issues to the Scrum Master, instead of providing answers or talking about
the theories or even start story-telling, the Scrum Master gives a follow-up
question. To overly simplify it, powerful questions are open-ended questions that
start with how and what. Such as" "How does that make you feel?", "What have you tried
so far?", "How did that work out for you?", "What else have you tried?", "How would Joe
feel if he's in the same situation as you?". Asking questions to people is easy.
But asking powerful questions that are thought-provoking requires wisdom and
mastery. When wearing the coach hat, the Scrum Master must avoid starting the
questions with why. "So can anybody tell me why was this defect not found during
system testing?". As a Scrum Master we want to avoid the why questions because the
nature of why questions is seeking for justification and it can make people
become defensive. When wearing the coach hat, the Scrum Master should also avoid
closed or binary questions. Binary questions are questions that only have
two answers. "Did you use solution x to solve that problem?", "Have you used
solution z to solve that problem?", "Have you asked Margareth about this issue?".
Binary questions put people in a trap or in a dilemma because there are only ...
two options. And oftentimes it can sound rhetorical. The purpose of coaching is to
invite and guide people to self-discover their own solutions. We do this because
we know people will have more ownership towards the solution they discover
themselves. And the role of a Scrum Master as a coach is to hold people
accountable for that solution. The fourth hat the Scrum Master wears is the
facilitator hat. Facilitation is a structured method to guide a group of
people to come up with a solution that everyone will understand and will be
accountable for. When wearing the facilitator hat, the Scrum Master must be
neutral, unbiased, objective, and without bringing their personal agenda. The word
facilitate comes from the latin word facilitare which means "to make it easy".
Therefore we can say that the purpose of facilitation is to make it easy for a
group of people in a meeting to come up with a collective decision and hold each
other accountable for that decision. The fifth hat the Scrum Master wears is the
upholding the Scrum values and principles. The Scrum values are focus,
courage, commitment, respect, and openness. Click the link up here to watch the
video I've already made about the Scrum values if you haven't already watched
that video. So rather than talking about the theories, the Scrum Master becomes
the role model and the mirror by reflecting behaviors that manifest the
Scrum values. And whenever the Scrum Master noticed that people are taking
action that does not align with or actually weakens the Scrum values and
principles, the Scrum Master would give them a nudge. The Scrum Master quite
often blends the uphold Scrum hat with the coach hat. The sixth hat the Scrum
Master wears is the point north hat. Point north is about refocusing or
reminding everyone in the company about the Product Vision, the Product goal and
the Sprint goals. Scrum is a goal driven framework. As
written on Scrum Guide, Scrum has Product Goal and also Sprint Goals. In fact,
during daily Scrum the developers discuss the daily goal. At our workplace
people are often distracted with the shiny new things that they just saw on the
market and forgot about their own purpose. When the Scrum Master wears the
point north hat the Scrum Master pulls everyone back to look at the purpose of
the team, the organisation and even the purpose of the company. Many people
thought that the Scrum Master is all talk but no action hence not valuable
for the company. The seventh hat the Scrum Master wears
is the take action hat. In a severe situation, the Scrum Masters do need to
take action. For example, when there are sabotage or when there's bullying
cajoling, manipulating or when there's sexual harassment or when people in the
team or even in the company are hiding critical information for the product
development. The eighth hat the Scrum Master wears is the actively do nothing
hat. The Scrum Master should not wear this hat all the time.
It doesn't mean that the Scrum Master are being passive or not doing anything
when wearing this hat. Actively doing nothing is a conscious
decision to take a step back and observe from afar. The Scrum Master is still
actively listening and still connected with what's happening in the team and in
the organization. When the Scrum Master know that the Scrum team or the
organization are self-managing and have got everything under control, it's actually
a disservice when the Scrum Master interrupts or interferes just to make
themselves look busy in other people's eyes.
As written on Scrum Guide, the Scrum Master is a true leader who serves. Being
a Scrum Master means choosing to serve and grow people to be the best version
of themselves rather than using power and authority to tell people to do as
the Scrum Master says. It's a different type of leadership. The
kind of leadership the Scrum Master applies is a leadership that does not
tell or prescribe certain solutions but instead the Scrum Master gives
boundaries for people to fail and celebrate and learn from those failures.
Knowing which hat to wear is a journey. If the Scrum Master always wears the
coach hat and the actively do nothing hat, obviously people in the company will
perceive that the Scrum Master is not valuable to the company. The same as if
the Scrum Master always wears the teacher hat and the take action hat,
people will also perceive the Scrum Master as not valuable. But when the
Scrum Master is balanced and wears the right hat for the right situation
people will see that the Scrum Master is an inspiring leader. Now I would like to
know your thoughts. In what cases or in what scenario do you think the Scrum
Master uses each of these eight hats? Leave a comment down below. I'm looking
forward to learn from you. That is all from me today folks. I hope
today's video helps you improve your Scrum mastery and hopefully it will help
you become a better leader who serves people at your company. And also don't
forget to check out my podcast "Think and Act like a Scrum Master" on Spotify,
Google podcast and Apple podcast. Until my next video ... don't forget to stay safe
and stay awesome!