Scrum Master Responsibilities

Responsibilities of a Scrum Master

Scrum masters perform the following responsibilities:

1. Coach the team members

The scrum master can coach the team and the product owner on different aspects of development. He teaches them how to boost productivity and team performances. The training he stands for helps ensure the members can solve problems and promote accountability.

2. Implement project management

Scrum Master is responsible for creating teams and giving out clear guidelines about the project they are working on. It is through constant meetings that improve the communication between team members. The masters also manage the project by listening to feedback and improving the product to meet deadlines.

3. Removes issues that may affect the team

Some common ways to ensure the team delivers are by getting rid of problems that the members cannot manage. For example, if we have many unnecessary meetings that affect the team's morality and jobs. The master removes the meetings and rearranges them to ensure everyone is happy.

4. Protects the team from interference

When the project owner comes and asks questions regarding the project or the manager steps in and demands the team to change something in the middle of a project. The scrum master intervenes and talks to the outsiders about the changes.

5. Keep the team members on their toes

Scrum master ensures that they carry out daily mockups to discuss any issues they face and ensure that the project delivery is well. They also talk to the owners to give them updates and ensure that they will deliver the project in time. Some of the meetings they organize include:

• Daily standup-it's not necessary for them to attend, but they can help ensure the meetings go on successfully with complete coordination.
• Sprint Planning Meeting-it guides the team members only to choose items they can work on and deliver on time. 
• Sprint review-Its main responsibility is to take the feedback from different entities.
• Sprint Retrospectives-the meeting checks if the team is implementing the discussions they held before.

6. Ensure the team complies with agile practices

Most agile practices like continuous integration help in code versioning, and automated tests are suitable for project development. It eliminates traditional methods that waste a lot of time and effort producing products full of bugs. Scrum master is the one who pushes the team to use agile practices by implementing practices like pair programming e.t.c

Who is a Scrum Master?

The scrum master helps ensure that the team members follow all the set processes when building projects. The master is in charge of the processes and principles of the Scrum framework in a project but doesn't have control over the whole project. They are also in charge of removing any issues that affect the set goals between the Scrum teams.

They should have special skills in understanding different tools and how to use them. It improves accountability among the members, making them meet all the set deadlines. You have to meet all the agile practices. The whole job of a scrum master is just to ensure that the company adopts the scrum framework.

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Types of scrum master skills

• Rotating scrum master -members use sprints to rotate the scrum master responsibilities.
• Part-time scrum master-one person handles scrum master responsibilities and other responsibilities.
• Full-time scrum master who manages more than one team-this works for masters who can belong to different teams.
• A full-time scrum master-this is the best for teams as he fully implements the agile practices.
• Agile coach-Works with more than one team only on special cases.

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Roles of a Scrum master

Scrum masters work with other professionals like product developers, owners, and organizations. Let's look at different roles performed by the scrum master with other team members. These roles are as below:

Role of the scrum master to the development team

• He has to train the team in new environments that have not yet embraced the Scrum framework.
• Eradicate issues that can affect the team's performance and productivity.
• The scrum masters can help in managing the scrum events.
• Ensure enough transparency when solving conflicts among members and when carrying out team processes.
• Conduct reviews regularly to monitor how your team is working.
• Enable the team members to have a deeper understanding of the project goals and scope.

Role of the scrum master to the project owner

• Help in checking the product catalogs.
• Check if scrum events are needed and organize in case there is a need.
• Promote the agility value after understanding it.
• Organize the planning of the project environment.
• Increase the value by giving the owner the guidelines on organizing the product backlog.

Role of the scrum master to the organization

• Educate the employers and stakeholders on how to use Scrum.
• Increase the use of scrum in the organization during the development of applications.
• Play a role with the team to ensure there is an increase in productivity.
• Outline different processes that every member of the organization will follow to implement the usage of the Scrum framework.

Role of scrum master in managing the organization scrum framework

• Encourage your team members to use Scrum every day.
• Tell the members to use scrum artifacts and use them in projects with a lot of transparency.
• Act as a team member during Sprint Retrospective and act accordingly.
• Ensure that the outsiders don't disrupt the daily meetings.
• Ensure that members observe their scrum events using the time boxes.
• Confirm that all scrum events and team members understood the whole process.
• Work to make sure that Sprint Retrospective is more productive.

Characteristics of a good Scrum master

Some of the best characteristics of a good scrum master include:

• Should have different knowledge on technical aspects of specific domains.Should be able to conduct research and how to work with agile methodologies like Kanban and Lean. He should also master how to avoid issues that may affect the project and how to eliminate existing problems.
• Influential. You should help the team members to make sure that you meet the set targets and deliverables. You organize, ensuring that the group and project owner's confidence is very high. You are also required to provide plans on how to complete a project, especially a new one. You have to be patient when giving answers and advising the team.
• Should understand how to collaborate with the team, product owners, and other staff. They have to invent different ways of talking to everyone, ensuring that the owner gets the right project. You have to grow the team such that all the set project requirements get met and have quality projects. Collaboration is one of the biggest aspects every scrum master should have.
• Empathy. You have to understand how others feel during the project phases. You can understand someone by being empathetic, or when coaching a new concept, you tend to use this.
• Should be transparent when communicating with the rest of the team. Scrum masters should look at better ways of communicating with the rest of the team members to ensure proper messaging.
• Courageous. Most of the services scrum master offers it's about serving different people. You should have the courage to face your team members and tell them what to do and what not to do. Some people fear speaking out, and this can affect the project delivery as the members can make mistakes, and it will be hard for you to point out.

frequently asked Scrum Interview questions and Answers !!

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Certification of a Scrum master

There are several certifications one can do to become a certified scrum master. Some of the certifications include  Professional Scrum Master™ I (PSM I) and Certified ScrumMaster®.Most companies give individuals with these certifications an upper hand during the hiring process.There are other certifications which include  Scrum Professional, Scrum Product Owner, Scrum Coach, Scrum Developer, and Scrum Trainer.

They will help you have higher pay and your passion for the Scrum methodologies. It opens many opportunities for you and you can choose which ones you want.

If you want to Explore more about Scrum? then read our updated article - Scrum Tutorial

Conclusion

Scrum masters play an important role in ensuring teamwork and collaborativeness are intact during the project development phase. Most of them have to ensure that the members and the product manager work together without issues. It is better as it provides good means of communication, making the development of projects easier and high quality. 

Many developers and engineers are doing the Scrum certification to help them increase their chances of pursuing Scrum master roles in companies. Most companies use the agile methodology, and there will be high demand for professionals. The article has helped you understand what roles and responsibilities scrum masters play in different organizations and companies to ensure agile practices get implemented.

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• Scrum Framework
• Scrum Principles