What is a Scrum Master?
Scrum Master, in simple words, is a role within the Scrum Framework. Scrum framework is an agile approach to build product incrementally and iteratively. Scrum is the most popular framework on the name of agile. Many people get confused between agile and scrum. Scrum is the most popular way to be agile but again, it is not the only way to be agile. The popularity of scrum reflects on its role as well.There are 3 roles in Scrum which have their own responsibility and accountability.
- Scrum Master
- Product Owner
- Development Team
You can learn deeper about Scrum Master jobs in Scrum Master and Advance Scrum Master training. It is popular for reasons such as it was the first training launched by certification bodies, traditional project managers took up this role in beginning to move towards agile-based delivery. Also, many considered this as a natural career progression within quality management, change management and release management organizations, etc.
Product Owner: This is the second most popular role in Scrum. Product owner looks after stakeholders, manages releases, manages the product backlog, and coordinates requirements within the development team and end-user. For me, this is the most important role in the scrum to build a successful product.
Product Ownership is a rather challenging job, particularly when users don’t know what they want. If you are interested in learning what the product owner does, then it is highly recommended to join Scrum Product Owner training. However, this wouldn’t be sufficient and you must explore other concepts such as lean startup, lead product development and user experience, etc.
Development Team: There is no product unless it is developed & ready to use for potential users. This will not happen without having a development team. You may survive without having a Scrum Master and Product owner because these roles could be played by someone within the development team; nevertheless, reversing the same might not always be possible.
Unfortunately, there are very few organizations that understand the value of a self-organized and cross-functional development team. However, the majority don’t invest hugely in them. Ignored development team results in producing the ignored product. It is important to have an educated development team on a scrum in order to maximize the value of their effort. Scrum developer training might be a good start.
Adopt Scrum values and processes: It is the Scrum master’s responsibility to help the team understand Scrum processes and values. Ensure that the team practices scrum in the right way and understand why it is important to practice the right way. They make sure artifacts such as product backlog, sprint backlog, and product increment are transparent. Also, facilitate all inspections and adapt events as needed/requested.
Facilitation: This is a big responsibility, especially when the scrum team is autonomous. Scrum masters need various approaches for facilitating learning opportunities, conflict management, stakeholder engagement, etc.
Coaching: Coaching is a professional skill, quite challenging to master. Yet, there are various learning paths to help you to achieve mastering in this. Scrum master coaches individual teams and practices. Hence, this goes beyond regular coaching, and there’s a need to master system coaching as well as scaling practices
Mentoring: Mentoring is an informal approach to help individuals and teams achieve their goals. This is a continuous process as the goal keeps changing for the team as it gains maturity.
How to Become a Scrum Master?
Becoming a good scrum master requires continuous learning and that usually starts with learning scrum processes. Learning scrum processes begins with attending Scrum Master Training, and the journey continues.I suggest you follow the below simple and easy process to get Scrum Certifed:
- Enrol for 2 days Scrum Master Course
- Register for your certification exam within 90 days of training
- Take and pass the exam by getting a score of at least 85%
- Update your certification