Scrum Master adds credibility to the Framework of Scrum in every way possible in the modern workflow process. The implementation of Scum and its fundamentals along with authenticated principles builds an Agile Path for the organization.

The Agile Path further brings so much of calibrated tools that shape the organization on limitless success stories. These Success stories are soaring high in every Organization that has the central workflow process of the Scrum Framework.

The main reason for all these Success Stories lies somewhere behind how the Scrum Framework has been implemented and the consistency which is maintained with every task performed and monitored within it. This whole thing then takes a turn and points on the decisive roles and responsibilities of a Scrum Master.

As the role of a Scrum Master plays a key role in the implementation of Scrum Framework within the organization with core values, there are a lot of factors that associate Scrum Master and their role in scripting Success Stories.

Guidance of Team Member on Agile Development Path

For any organization, the Agile Development path is the foremost factor of success stories. The Scrum Master has a very decisive role here as the Mentor and Facilitator that guides the Scrum Team for the Product Development Process with underlying core values of Scrum implementation.

The Scrum Master adds support to the Scrum Team Member for adaptation to changes quickly. This also includes developing a culture that serves a great purpose for the Scrum Team in responding to backlogs or blockages quickly during the Product Development Process.

Delivery of Featured Products

The Consistency of Product Delivery and assurance featured Product being delivered within time plays a prime role in end-user satisfaction. This implies positive aspects of improved performance with continuous success rates for the Organization.

The Scrum Master thus plays a crucial role here as well in the Product Development Process and successful delivery of it. This helps the team members to remain on an Agile Path with the Product Development process that helps to deliver featured products consistently with efficiency.

Outcomes of Collaborative Approach

The Outcomes of the Collaborative approach in the workflow serve a great purpose in the consistent Success Stories. The participation of every member in team activities and their engagement in cooperative coordination helps in solving impediments as well as contributes to personal growth as well.

The Scrum Master helps the team members to have a better understanding and coordination among themselves, which brings effective changes with results. Thus, the Scrum Master helps the team member to invoke a purpose that makes the team have a collaborative approach. By virtue of this, the Scrum Master allows the Organization to have a work environment in which the team nurtures and flourishes.

Aspects as a Change Agent

Being a Change Agent, one brings the culture to the organization that helps other members to adapt to changes quickly. This is of great significance for the team members to build an ability that is vital in making critical decisions for making the growth in the adverse environment as well, with Consistency.

The Scrum Master acts as a change agent in the Organization who consistently invokes the change in culture on the requirements of the project development process. This not only improves efficiency but also helps the Organization to be on the path of success in an adverse environment.

Role as a Servant Leader

The Servant leader has the main goal to serve, which means they share their reform plans, Power, Experience, guidance, etc. as a leader to help the team member with continuous growth within an organization. A good Servant leader prioritizes the needs of the team member first so they can flourish and develop themselves.

Scrum Master is not only a mentor but also the leader of the Scrum Team. Being the leader, the Scrum Master plays a vital role as a Servant Leader, which makes the Scrum Team develop themselves and be consistent with an Agile Path.

Individual Benefits of Being a Scrum Master
Get a High Level of Preciseness in Executing Scrum

Implementation of Scrum Framework in the Organization is the prior task of a Scrum Master. The Preciseness with which the Scrum Master implements the Scrum Framework and allows the team to adapt and work on the fundamentals of Scrum Framework decides the growth rate of an Organization up to extents.

This helps in bringing a high level of accuracy as an individual in mastering the Scrum with each technique that helps the other member reap benefits from it.

Contribution to the Creation of Healthy Work Culture

As a Scrum Master, you have the key responsibility to lead, Mentor, and facilitate the Scrum Team on the various principles of the workflow process. This is where you bring a culture and changes which help you as well as your team member to grow on the Agile Path.

Perseverance of Self Motivation and Self Engagement

Scrum Master has the role of encouragement and motivation for the Scrum team members. This is of great use from a personal perspective as well that keeps themselves motivated and engaged with positivity all around. This also includes the Scrum Master to build the immune which doesn’t let them get distracted from any kind of distraction.

The role of Scrum Master can be temporary or permanent, depending on the organization’s needs. Larger businesses with multiple agile teams might want to keep a Scrum Master on staff to help oversee the method long term, but sometimes the position is temporary or contracted. For most businesses, especially midsize and small organizations, it’s more useful to hire a Scrum Master on a contract basis to help get an agile team up and running. Scrum Masters aren’t just responsible for organizing a scrum team; they also help the company embrace agile as a culture shift. To properly implement the scrum framework, a Scrum Master needs to encourage buy-in from employees and key stakeholders.

A Scrum Master collaborates with all the members of the team, and is required to provide various services to the Product Owner, the Team and the organisation.

1. Scrum Master’s service to the Product Owner

What is one service the Scrum Master provides to the Product Owner?

The Scrum Master both guides and serves the Product Owner in more ways than one including:

• Formulating techniques for effective Product Backlog Management,
• Helping the team understand the need for clear and concise product backlog items,
• Imparting the understanding of product planning in an empirical environment,
• Ensuring that the Product Owner has clarity on arranging the product backlog to yield maximized value,
• Understanding and practicing agility, and
• Facilitating Scrum events as requested or needed.

2. Scrum Master’s service to the development team

What is one service the Scrum Master provides to the Development Team?

The Scrum Master has an important role to play with respect to the development team.

• Removing project impediments that stand in the way of team productivity and performance
• Helping the development team to create high-value products
• Ensuring the development team is working effectively, by conducting regular reviews
• Creating transparency in processes and resolving conflicts
• Helping the team to understand and follow the goals, scope of work and product domain
• Facilitating Scrum events as requested or needed, and
• Coaching the Development Team in organizational environments in which Scrum is not yet fully adopted and understood.

3. Scrum Master’s service to the organization

What is one service the Scrum Master provides to the organization?

The Scrum Master has several responsibilities to the organization as well.

• Helping employees and stakeholders understand and implement Scrum practices
• Acting as a change agent that increases the productivity of the team
• Leading and guiding the organization in successful Scrum adoption, by streamlining processes and ensuring that every member on the team follows the Scrum framework
• Taking part in planning Scrum implementations within the organization, and
• Working with other Scrum Masters to increase the effectiveness of the application of Scrum in the organization.

Scrum Master on a SAFe Team

A Scrum Master on a SAFe team creates and nurtures an environment that supports smooth team dynamics, ensures continuous flow through the Agile Release Train, and facilitates ongoing improvement.

A SAFe Scrum Master undertakes the following responsibilities

• Promotes a Lean-Agile mindset and exhibits leadership behaviour, supporting and enforcing team rules
• Helps the team to drive relentless improvement and progress toward goals
• Hosts and facilitates Scrum events
• Supports the PO and acts as a bridge between the PO, team and the organization
• Removes obstacles
• Promotes SAFe practices, and supports SAFe adoption across the enterprise
• Coordinates activities on the ART (Agile Release Train), and prepares for ART events, and
• Works in tandem with Scrum Masters on other teams to improve the overall Value Stream.

A SAFe Scrum Master represents the team in the Scrum of Scrums, keeping them aware of all efforts to engage and build upon program effectiveness across teams.

What are the characteristics that a Scrum Master must possess, to be exceptional at their job? Here are the top traits of a successful Scrum Master.

Knowledgeable

First and foremost, a person who wants to be an effective process coach should be knowledgeable. The same holds true for a Scrum Master, who must understand the technical issues the team needs to address and the technologies the team will use to come up with end solutions. However, while they should be aware of the domain, they are not required to be an expert.

Patient

A Scrum Master needs to be patient and give time to the team to arrive at appropriate answers on their own. At times, all that may be needed is to oversee how the team is dealing with a certain issue, and step in only when they are unable to deal with it without support.

Collaborative

As a Scrum Master, you should have the right collaboration skills to work with the product owner, development team, and all other parties; even those who might not be directly involved with Scrum. The Scrum Master works as a process coach to help the Scrum team members achieve their goals.

Transparent

Last but not least, the Scrum Master should be transparent in all forms of communication. When working with team members, there should be no hidden agendas; what you see and hear from the Scrum Master must be what you get. People expect nothing less of a servant leader.

The Scrum Master also promotes transparent communication outside of the Scrum team. Without transparency, it is difficult for the organization to inspect and adapt to achieve the desired business results using Scrum.

The Scrum Master wears many hats, and carries out several mission-critical responsibilities on the Scrum project. Here is a curated Scrum Master responsibilities list.

1. Coaches team members

The Scrum Master acts as the coach for both the development team and the product owner. By acting as a bridge between the roles, he or she can enable the product owner to directly drive development.

The Scrum Master knows the capabilities of the team and constantly finds ways to help the team to boost performances and enhance productivity.

He or she makes sure that the team is well trained, and understands Agile well enough to address challenges on its own.

Like any good coach, the Scrum Master does not solve the problems faced by the team, rather, they facilitate them in solving the problem themselves. Only in extreme cases when the team is unable to find a resolution, the Scrum Master takes full accountability and ownership of the problem and gets it resolved.

2. Hosts Daily Stand-up Meetings, Sprint Planning Meetings, Retrospectives and Reviews

The Scrum Master will facilitate and host all the Scrum events, including Sprint Planning Meetings, Daily Stand-up Meetings, Reviews and Retrospectives.

Sprint Planning Meeting

The Scrum Master in this meeting shall prevent the development team from being over ambitious by selecting more Product Backlog items than they can deliver. If the Scrum team is not very mature, they may also require help in estimation.

Daily Stand-up

While the Scrum Master is not required to be a part of the Daily Scrum, he or she should make sure that the development team conducts it on time. In case the development team is distributed, the logistics to coordinate the Daily Scrum are made available to the development team.

Sprint Review

The Scrum Master is a part of the review meeting and captures the feedback raised by the stakeholders. This feedback is used to take inputs from the team in the retrospective meeting.

Sprint Retrospectives

The Scrum Master conducts the retrospective meeting, noting down the areas of improvement that were suggested by the team. At times, the Scrum Master could ask someone else to conduct the retrospective meeting so as to get a different point of view on the process improvement.

3. Acts as a Servant Leader

The Scrum Master is often referred to as a servant leader. A servant leader is someone who asks, “what can I do today to help you and the team be more effective?” rather than asking “what are you going to do for me today?”

His or her objective is to enhance and increase teamwork and personal involvement. Rather than being a master of the team, the Scrum Master is a master at encouraging, enabling and energizing people and helping them to realize their potential.

A servant leader should have the following qualities:

• Listening skills
• Empathy
• Cultivating a culture of trust
• Acting with humility
• Encouraging others

As a servant leader, the Scrum Master’s duties include:

• Leading the team through healthy conflict and debate on ideas
• Teaching, mentoring and coaching the organization and team in adopting and using Scrum
• Helping the team remove and prevent impediments
• Empowering and guiding the development team on self-management.

4. Helps the Product Owner with the Product Backlog

While it is the Product Owner’s responsibility to create and maintain the product backlog, the Scrum master helps the product owner refine and groom the tasks, based on current status of the work and development needs. The Scrum Master is in the best position to do this, using the information gathered from the daily stand-up meetings.

The Scrum Master helps with the product backlog by scheduling review meetings and prioritizing tasks on user stories.

5. Protects the Team from outside interference

The Scrum Master acts as a protector and helps the team by protecting it from outside interference that comes in the way of delivering the business value during each sprint.

Interference can come from many sources; for instance it can be from managers who want to redirect team members in the middle of a sprint. No matter what the source of the interference, the Scrum Master acts as an interceptor and solves the issue amicably.

6. Removes obstacles

A core responsibility of the Scrum Master is to help the team stay focused on the tasks that need to be done in each iteration, and for this, any distractions and roadblocks that can impede progress must be ironed out. This is important especially when the team members cannot easily remove those impediments on their own.

For instance, if team members are being forced to attend too many unimportant meetings that do not allow them to make progress on the work, the Scrum Master can work with meeting organizers to pare down the number of attendees for each meeting. Only those who are absolutely essential can participate.

If a team member is being assigned tasks on multiple teams, the Scrum Master can work to redistribute the workload.

Again, there could be internal disagreements in the team about their individual working styles or there could be disagreements about the Scrum process itself. The Scrum Master may have a one-on-one meeting with development team members to understand the same, and resolve such conflicts before they escalate into full blown disagreements.

7. Teaches and upholds Scrum practices and principles

The Scrum Master is well versed in all key Scrum practices and processes, and knows how to follow the core values of Scrum. If the other team members are new to Agile, the Scrum Master acts as a mentor and teacher to guide new team members, helping them to learn the ropes and ensuring work does not slow down.

The Scrum Master has the authority to ensure whether the team enacts and adheres to the Scrum values, principles, and practices. Whenever they are found wanting, as a teacher, the Scrum master will help them to understand the scope and vision, and adhere to Scrum practices and rules.

In doing so, the Scrum Master helps the Scrum team to improve the process and helps in maximizing the delivered business value.

Scrum Masters earn between $65/Hour to $95/Hour ($130,000 to $190,000 annually) if they work on a contract basis. For full time employees, earnings between $90,000 and $120,000 with benefits is prevalent within the US. Demand for Scrum Masters is expected to rise much faster than other IT roles. Experience, training and certifications, location, and industry are several factors that would impact expected earnings of Scrum Masters. Scrum Masters do work in one or more of the following roles:

• Scrum Master
• Scrum Coach
• Agile Scrum Master
• Scrum Master/Agile Coach

Past participants of our Certified Scrum Agilists (CSA) training program came from variety of industries, including healthcare, banking, finance, credit card issuers, retail, oil and gas, manufacturing, distribution, transportation, communication and internet, energy, computer manufacturers, consulting firms, credit bureaus, network manufacturers, software, hardware, government organizations, satellite manufacturers, credit unions, and oil refineries to name several. Here are few of the 220+ organizations that our past participants represented: Walmart, Kroger, Target, Accenture, USAA, Shell, ExxonMobil, Citibank, Master Card, Visa, Duke Energy, Bank of America, IBM, FedEx, Aetna, Anthem, CVS, Walgreens, Tesla, Verizon, Infosys, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, CapitalOne, USPS, US Bank, Blackrock, CBRE, TD Ameritrade, Wipro, Micron, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Discover, Chevron, Ford, HP, Allstate, State Farm, Desjardins, Petrobras, Enterprise, US Coast Guard, US Department of State, UHG, FDA, SAIC, BCBS, HCSC, PepsiCo, Dell, PETCO, and LPL Finacial etc.

We at Chicago State University offer several career enhancing training programs for Certified Scrum Agilists. Scrum Masters can pursue to attend one or more of the following training offered by us:

1. Certified Agile Coach (CAC)
2. Certified Agile Facilitator (CAF)
3. Certified Enterprise Agility Coach (CEAC)
4. Certified Agile Transformation Coach (CATC)
5. Certified DevOps Transformation Coach (CDTC)
6. Certified Business Agility Coach (CBAC)
7. Certified Agile Leadership Professional (CALP)
8. Certified Agile Change Practitioner (CACP)
9. Certified Servant Leader Practitioner (CSLP)
10. Certified Emotional Intelligence Practitioner (CEIP)

Certified Scrum Agilits can earn a Master’s Certificate in Agile Management (MCAM) by completing training programs 1-5 . They can further their advancement by earning Advanced Master’s Certificate in Agile Management (AMCAM) by completing training programs 5–10. Both the Master’s Certificate in Agile Management (MCAM) and the Advanced Master’s Certificate in Agile Management (AMCAM) are the first and only such programs in the world!