Useful Tips For Scrum Masters – What Can Make A Successful Scrum Master

Generally, when a particular organization starts using and implementing Scrum, the person selected to function as a scrum master comes from a managerial background. The organization feels that such a person would have enough experience to handle teams in an efficient manner and execute projects successfully. However, in real life, whatever background a scrum master is chosen from, he or she has to put in special efforts to implement scrum. Perhaps the main reason why this happens is because scrum is an entirely different ball game, with a different set of rules. As far as scrum methodology is concerned, it is not what background the scrum master comes from, but rather what he or she is capable of delivering in terms of collaboration, implementing scrum techniques and rules, and getting the desired results from the development team. In the initial stages, every scrum master struggles. A couple of pointers can make the work much easier for him or her.

Working on a single project

If you work on more than one project at a time, you cannot give hundred percent to any of your projects. Scrum masters tend to be wary about unsuccessful projects. The worst thing that can happen to a scrum master is to end up with a partially completed or a failed project. Failures can result in a loss of future projects, so scrum masters are inclined to handle multiple projects at times. The general feeling is to salvage some reputation from other successfully completed projects in the event one of the projects fails. This attitude is in antithesis of what scrum preaches. According to scrum methodology, a person, or a team member should put in one hundred percent into the project, and ensure it works out successfully. Therefore, the person starting out as a scrum master should preferably handle only one project, and contribute all efforts in completing the project in a successful manner.

Improving upon the team effectiveness

It is important to remember that scrum encourages team efforts rather than individual efforts. It is what the development team contributes as a whole that counts, instead of how much development individual team members contribute towards the project. For the sprint to be completed successfully, each member should contribute towards the development activity and contribute something. For this to happen, it is important to have a healthy environment which supports proactive participation of the team members. The scrum master should make sure there are no impediments faced by the team, and each person works to the best of his or her ability. It is important to improve upon the team effectiveness to get the most out of scrum.  

Rather than managing, support facilitation

Traditional project managers tend to “manage” while successful project managers “facilitate”. Your attitude can make a huge difference is getting positive results out of the team. An autocratic attitude towards the subordinates may deliver results, but it would be more out of rote rather than active participation and creativity. Scrum supports creativity and open mindedness. If a team member is open to suggestions, he or she might contribute more and much better quality. Encouraging team members, having one-to-one discussion that focuses upon solving their individual problems, and standing up by them in difficult times can go a long way in getting their support and cooperation. Facilitation helps to foster healthy working environment and better results. 

Make sure each team understands the meaning of "done"

The acceptance criterion plays a very important part in getting the user stories accepted by the product owner. Even though the product owner is liable to explain the definition of “done” during the sprint meeting, subsequently team members can feel confused about how the definition should be ideally interpreted when they face difficulties at the time of developing the user story. The scrum master should be very clear about what “done” means, and if any of the team member faces problems in understanding the acceptance criteria during the sprint,  he or she should be properly explained and educated regarding the same to ensure the user story does not get rejected at the end of the sprint.

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