What a Scrum Master Really Does Beyond Project Admin

What a Scrum Master really does
Beyond project admin and maximising velocity…
Rowan Bunning CST, July 2021

@rowanb
© 2018-21 Scrum WithStyle scrumwithstyle.com
My Agile journey 2005
2006
2008
2018
2017
2015
2010
• 2001 Introduced to eXtreme Programming in Smalltalk

• 2003 Introduced Scrum and became a Scrum Maste
r

• 2005 Went on
fi
rst Certi
fi
ed ScrumMaster course in Australia

• 2006 Became
fi
rst Certi
fi
ed Scrum Professional in Australia

• 2006 Unsuccessful attempt to
fi
nd Agile Coaching work in Australia

• 2007 Hired as an Agile Coach at top Scrum consultancy in London

• 2008 Worked mainly as a Scrum Master in London and Dublin

• 2008 Became a Certi
fi
ed Scrum Trainer

• 2008-2019 Scrum Training and Agile Coaching across AU and NZ

• 2018 One of world’s
fi
rst Certi
fi
ed Agile Leadership credential II (CAL II)

• 2018 First Path to CSP Educator in AU with Advanced Certi
fi
ed ScrumMaster (A-CSM)

• 2019 Approved to teach CSP-SM completing the Path to CSP

@rowanb
Results from Sydney 25 June 2018

@rowanb
Results from Melbourne 23 July 2018

@rowanb
Scrum Secretary?

@rowanb
Busy work? Coffee runs?

– The Scrum Guide (November 2020)
“The Scrum Master is accountable for the
Scrum Team’s effectiveness.”

“Scrum Masters are true leaders who serve the
Scrum Team and the larger organization.”

@rowanb
From the original Certi
fi
ed ScrumMaster
training material by Ken Schwaber - 2006
• Replace “The Contract Game” with customer
collaboration

• No intermediaries e.g. project/delivery
managers

• Teach the Product Owner inc. full lifecycle
product economics

• Humanist, cultivate people

• High agency team, bounded autonomy

• Power re-distribution change agent

• Impediment removal facilitator

• Theory Y: remove inhibits motivation

• Elimination of “Undone” & Water-Scrum-Fall

• Team end-to-end cross-functional

• Agile tech practices Continuous Integration etc.
Implications

@rowanb
Focus off velocity, focus on impact
Ideas, Output, Outcome and Impact
Features
Usability enhancements
Optimisations
User tutorials etc.
Repeated use
Pains relieved
Gains realised
Stakeholders satisﬁed etc.
Increased market share
Increased revenue
Cost savings
Bottom line results
Impact
Outcome
Output
Agile is about discovering and delivering the minimum output to achieve the desired outcome and impact.
Users / Customers
Deliverables Deliverables
Time
Ideas
Feature ideas
Enhancement ideas
PBIs
Speciﬁcations etc.
Hypotheses
?
?
?

@rowanb
Scrum Master in three words
capability improvement leader
inside out change
Scrum
Team
Organisation
distributed at Gemba
value creation
i.e. the real place where the work is done

@rowanb
What a Scrum Master does
2. Improve Transparency 3. Improve Flow
Lead adoption of
good Scrum
1.
Impediment
removal
Technical
practices
Workflow
Artefacts
Transparency of progress inc.
product outcomes and
capability improvement
Org. systems impacting
effectiveness
Effectiveness of
interactions
Empirical
Control
Understanding
including Why
Teamwork
A Scrum Master does not A Scrum Master does
Co-ordinates with others outside the team
✔ Teaches the team how to track and manage progress themselves
Spend most of their time on admistration ✔ Spends most of their time on improvement change
Do ongoing reporting ✔ Leads change toward Scrum being self-reporting
Assign tasks ✔ Teaches the team how to allocate tasks to themselves
Manage progress
✔ Teaches the team how to co-ordinate with others
Tell the team how to deal with a situation ✔ Coaches the team to determine how it will deal with a situation
Make product or development decisions ✔ Facilitates the team to make decisions that they are committed to
Learning
What a Scrum Master does

@rowanb
CHANGE AGENT
SERVANT-LEADER MANAGER
FACILITATOR TEACHER
COACH
MENTOR REFLECTIVE OBSERVER
IMPEDIMENT REMOVER
Scrum Masters skills and deliberate stances

@rowanb
Majority of time on impediments
Essential Scrum, Ken Rubin

@rowanb
Scrum WithStyle scrumwithstyle.com Thanks to Michael James.
Organisational Impediment
Impediment name:
Surface issue:
Business impact:
Emotional impact:
Underlying causes:
(Ask “why” up to 5 times or use
Causal Loop Diagramming)
Intervention point:
Clear, actionable request:
Cost of not resolving this
Structured Analysis

e.g. Ishikawa, 5 whys, Causal Loop Diagramming

@rowanb
Scrum Master is a blue-print
for what manager / leader is
in progressive management
self-management
cross-functional
servant-leadership
lean
values-based
humanistic
networks over hierarchies
Theory Y
coach
bureaucracy elimination

@rowanb
Conclusion 1
The Scrum Master role remains widely misunderstood

It’s on us to more effectively educate about our rol
e

It starts with us!

@rowanb
Conclusion 2
Too few Scrum Masters with the skills and con
fi
dence
to effectively meet the challenges

It’s our responsibility to advance our own
developmen
t

2 days of training is completely insuf
fi
cient

@rowanb
Upgrade yourself so that you
can lead upgrading others

@rowanb
Professional Development Path from Scrum Alliance
Certi
fi
ed ScrumMaster®
Understanding Scrum and
starting in a Scrum friendly
environment
Advanced Certi
fi
ed
ScrumMaster
℠

ScrumMaster skills to be
effective serving Scrum Team
in a challenging environment
Certi
fi
ed Scrum
Professional®-ScrumMaste
r

Tools to improve the
organisational system from the
Scrum Team out
More info: scrumwithstyle.com/a-csm

@rowanb
• Team Launch

• Lean Thinking

• Advanced Facilitation

• Coaching

• Outcome and Impact

• Systems Thinking

• Structures for Scaling

• Software Craftsmanship

• Scrum Mastery

• 5 Assignments
• Core Facilitation

• Teaching Scrum and Agile

• Servant-Leadership

• Team Dynamics

• Core Coaching

• Impediment Resolution
Facilitation

• Development Practices

• Scaling Principles

• Organisational Change

• Your Development Path
Advanced ScrumMaster Offerings
scrumwithstyle.com/a-csm

What a Scrum Master Really Does Beyond Project Admin

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What a Scrum Master Really Does Beyond Project Admin