The role of Scrum Master is simple and difficult at the same time. Simple, because the core responsibilities are described in the Scrum Guide, which everyone relies on. Difficult, because this role has quite a lot of additional duties and functions. And their list expands significantly when the Scrum Master works with many teams.
I suggest using the example of the SAFe and LeSS frameworks to consider the main events in which the Scrum Master participates and additional activities.
To illustrate the essence of the position, I will give a quote from Mike Cohn:
«Scrum Master is like a conductor who helps a group of musicians to create something unique, something they would never have created on their own»
If you refer to the Scrum Guide, then the duties of this specialist are described as follows:
Teach team members self-organization and cross-functionality.
Help create valuable increments – something that has value for the end user.
Contribute to the elimination of obstacles to the progress of the team, that is, not to do it themselves, but to teach specialists how to achieve it.
Monitor that all scheduled Scrum events are on time, positive and productive.
I often see how this role comes down to the Scrum Master monitoring that the team completes all the assigned tasks, noting it in Jira and considers it a success. And yes, he actively books all the necessary Scrum ceremonies in the team’s calendar. In fact, this role is much broader than described in the Scrum Guide. For example, in addition to working with the team, the Scrum Master should also help the Product Owner.
Help to find methods to effectively define Product Goal and manage Product Backlog;
Help Scrum Team to understand the need for clear and concise elements of Product Backlog;
Help to establish empirical planning of products in difficult conditions;
Organize the process of cooperation with other stakeholders. Product owners are not always able to build communication with stakeholders effectively. The task of Scrum Master is to help establish communication.
Helping the company to work according to the Scrum methodology. For example, to contribute to the solution of difficulties that may arise in the team, to conduct training, coaching. In short, become a Scrum Ambassador.
Plan and implement the methodology throughout the organization. If it is a large company, you can move the IT department to Scrum, and the other departments will work as they are used to. After that, the specialist’s task will be to understand the need for other departments to switch to new processes. Thus promoting the spread of Scrum throughout the company.
Help employees and stakeholders understand the essence of the empirical approach.
Remove the barrier between the business department and the team. Separating stakeholders and developers is a big mistake. It is often assumed by Scrum Masters who previously held the position of project manager.
How does the world of a Scrum Master who works with not one but many teams change?
The first question that will be faced by the specialist is: how to organize the work?
With one team, everything is usually clear: there is a Scrum Guide, which describes the basic recommendations. When there are five or more teams, the question is to choose a scaling framework for organizing effective work.
My advice: analyze your existing needs, company culture, experience with a particular framework, including the experience of teams working on Scrum and how close the Agile culture is to the company – and based on this, make a decision about a particular framework.
If you have up to three teams, in our opinion, you don’t need a framework. Your work will be based on self-organization and self-coordination of teams. Additionally, introduce Scrum of Scrum meetings to communicate between team representatives to track cross-team progress and work on obstacles.
If there are more than three teams, it is necessary to choose a framework.
If you chose SAFe, let’s see how the Scrum Master role will change compared to Scrum. Let’s consider the example of the simplest version of SAFe – Essential SAFe, which covers up to 125 people working on a joint product. Of course, all the main points that were in Scrum will remain, but the processes introduced by SAFe will appear:
SAFe introduces the additional role of RTE (Release Train Engineer – Chief Scrum Master). Key responsibilities of this role:
As you can see, the area of responsibility of the RTE is much wider than that of the Scrum Master.
LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum) is a rather interesting framework with its own rules for organizing work. It also provides for the role of Scrum Master. Here, ceremonies and new roles are added: for example, Area Product Owner (APO), if the product is really large. Despite these innovations, the core of the framework remains Scrum: there is a Scrum master, a cross-functional team, and a product owner.
Speaking specifically about the role of Scrum Master, LeSS emphasizes that Scrum Master helps each team member see how his or her participation affects the entire system: interactions, delays, causes, opportunities.
Scrum Master focuses on the team, product owner, organization, and development practices during his work. In particular, he or she coaches the product owner to be in this role, to be closer to the product users, to help the organization implement LeSS, and to constantly monitor and present new development practices to the team.
To delve deeper into this topic, I recommend reading the following literature:
If you want to learn all the necessary skills to successfully fulfill the role of Scrum Master in the company, we invite you to the SAFe Scrum Master course.
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