What is a Scrum Master?
It is a moderator for an agile development team for a project. Scrum is a systematic process that allows the team members to stay on the right track and adjust to a dynamic environment. Theis guides the process of the exchange of pieces of information. A scrum master holds a post that influences each department of an organization. It is not included in the product planning strategy rather handles the backends. It serves as a channel between the product line of business and project managers, along with the team. Scrum Masters should also know soft skills with the latest tools and methods because of agile processes dependent on people and the collaborations.
A Scrum Master also sustains an overview to help the team members to understand both organizational and technical dependencies reducing obstacles as much as possible. It increases accountability and allows team members to complete tasks within deadlines.
Agile methodologies are earning notable business attention in all industries. Numerous flexible development models like Scrum have permitted organizations to capture the market faster, which is essential in today’s scenario. With the advancing technologies and products launching in the market every day, greater flexibility in the process is expected to get the best quality of products out into the market to stay ahead of significant competitors. To adopt methodologies, Scrum accommodates the deliverables that the project requires.
In brief, Scrum methodology functions the following way:
- The product owner presents a demand for a deliverable to an organization.
- The development team lead by a Scrum Master splits the demand down into smaller sections, also known as “sprints to analyze it better.”
- Sprints consist of reiterative and collaborative development and examination methods in a dynamic environment and produce an effective product lifecycle.
- Through adopting agile scrum methodological processes can increase the efficiency of the project teams, and they can provide the best quality deliverable within the deadline.
Roles in a scrum:
Product Owner
The product owner is the main person behind the construction of the vision for the software to be developed. A Product owner concentrates mainly on the business and market conditions and the following requirements. They also keep a record of the tasks that need to be completed in the project.
Scrum Team
In a scrum team, all the members collaborate on a collection of tasks to deliver the best quality of software to the client. The scrum team gives approximations of the volume of tasks that can be completed in a particular iteration.
Scrum Master
Scrum Master ensures that the team members accompany the scrum process. A Scrum Master is the moderator of agile improvement in a project. He/she arranges meetings with clients, fixes deal, ascertains the team with upcoming challenges and deadlines. He/she also interacts with the Product Owner to form the product supply for the subsequent iteration.
Characteristics that a successful Scrum Master should possess
Influential
A Scrum Master has to direct various project teams that have collaborated on a project to achieve a definite goal and deliver the best quality outcome. They should have the character trait to motivate varied groups and clients at an organizational level, maximizing the potential of all at team members to get the best output. As a team leader, the Scrum Master is a vital intermediary within the project planning and the resources required to achieve it successfully. The Scrum Master should have influential leadership qualities and organizational skills sets.
Collaborative
The Scrum Masters is a crucial intermediary between the product owner and the project teams. The product owner sends the overall initiative while the Scrum Master sustains the team members. Efficient collaboration between the Scrum Master and the product owner helps the team members to deliver a successful product that meets the organization’s goals. A skilled Scrum Masters should be capable of discovering productive ways to increase collaboration and productivity of each team member to produce the best possible outcome.
Observant
The Scrum Masters should have characteristics of a good listener and pay attention to the upcoming obstacles and challenges that are faced by the project team. The Scrum Masters should also be careful and alert to the team’s regular tasks to attain a fair picture of team members’ duties and contributions in the project.
Knowledgeable
The Scrum Master should not only settle arising problems but should also have sufficient knowledge to prevent possible obstacles. It requires full knowledge regarding the product and the process. He helps the team to overcome obstacles and meet deadlines. The Scrum Master should have knowledge and experience of different work settings and flexible processes, for example, XP, Lean, and Kanban.
The Roles and Responsibilities of a Scrum Master:
- Improve the everyday scrum process.
- Execute Project Management for the smooth running of the project.
- Settle disputes by concentrating on scrum purposes of openness, justice, and regard.
- Anticipate the quantity of potential deliverable feasible in an iteration based on resources and previous experience.
- Evaluation of overall project progress and strategy planning for the entire software development project.
- Instruct the team members in agile engineering practices.
- Anticipation on collaborations and interactions over processes and mediums.
- Places itself at the center of the project by coordinating project tasks with project goals.
- Encourage the team members to interpret goals to achieve the business objective.
- Pay attention to the upcoming obstacles and challenges that are faced by the project team.
- Ensure the proper procedure of the scrum process.
- He/she keeps both the project team and project owner informed about the progress of the project.
- Elaborates the product backlog for the next sprint. A sprint is arranged by carrying out a trial of the software to the potential clients and stakeholders.
- The Scrum Master assembles feedback from the clients to incorporate it into the product backlog. An in-house inspection conference is held with the development team to accept their feedback on how to enhance the development team.
- He/she concentrates on strategic perspectives. It includes planning for the product backlog and developing a product extension schedule with the Product Owner.
How to become a Scrum Master?
For becoming a Scrum master, one has to apply for a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) course. A CSM course will help to interact with other Scrum experts. The essential characteristics required to become a Scrum Master apart from the above-stated responsibilities are:
- Should be familiar with the entire Scrum process.
- Apply for a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) course, which will enable you to interact with other certified Scrum experts and trainers.
- To clear the Certified Scrum Master (CSM) course exam, a person has to answer at least 24 of 35 questions correctly.
Various tools are available online that help Scrum Masters to tackle their responsibilities during the Scrum process efficiently.
Conclusion
Scrum Masters are capable of encouraging, approving, and administering agile development procedures to improve the quality of the deliverables outputs by improving the productivity and efficiency of the team members. They learn and possess characteristics for tactfully controlling the project. The Certified Scrum Master (CSM) course enables a person to check whether they are eligible to become a scrum master. During this course, one is introduced to the ideas, practices, and skill set required to expertise in an agile development team for a project.
