4 essential traits of a good Scrum Master

What makes a good scrum master? To answer that question, we should first have a recap on who a scrum master is. It’s the position of team facilitator, a person navigating the team to reach its highest potential possible. Scrum master l of the team. And by removing obstacles that stand in the way of efficient increment execution. This requires the right outlook, approach to the problems encountered by the team and soft skills.

Characteristics of a good Scrum Master – Table of contents:

Planning and coordinating
Leading by guiding
Persuading with care
Seeing the big picture
Summary

Planning and coordinating

The ideal Scrum Master is a person who could organize work brilliantly. This allows him to organize the Product Backlog efficiently and on an ongoing basis – one of the artifacts of Scrum that we will describe.

However, the Scrum Master’s organizational skills are primarily used to coordinate the work done by others. That’s why it’s good for him to be as efficient in organizing Scrum events, which we describe in detail in a separate article, as in moderating them. His tasks also include filling in missing information and answering developer questions. And facilitating access to training and tools for team members.

As we wrote in the previous article, Scrum Master is primarily concerned with working with people. By managing the team and ensuring smooth operation, each Scrum Team member knows their role scope of duties within the team. In other words, everyone knows what to do and why.

Leading by guiding

Scrum Master’s role has certain defined characteristics. Such as acting as a guide, a person leading the way to safety but restraining from imposing superiority. Like a facilitator, Scrum Master helps by pointing out ways to increase productivity and improve collaboration. In other words, a good Scrum Master doesn’t devote time to force decisions or solutions concerning the Product the team is creating. Instead, the main focus revolves around the team performance. By doing so, find effective solutions and suggests how to work together.

That is why it is so important for him to be able to ask questions. Questions that are not traditionally associated with the role of a manager. That is, instead of checking tasks and asking – were they done correctly and on time? And why not?

The good Scrum Master asks:

How can I help you?
What could help the team make progress on this project?
Did we miss something?
Have we covered all the issues?
What else could go wrong?
How much time is needed for this?
Will we continue this approach in the next iteration?

Asking questions is not enough though. The key is the ability to listen and benefit from the knowledge, insights and assistance provided by the team.

Persuading with care

The basis of a Scrum Master’s strong position in a Scrum Team is to treat all team members equally. The key is to make sure that every member of the Development Team feels their contribution to the team is valued. The next step is to empower team members by supporting their professional and personal development. A Development Team composed of equal and confident individuals will strive to solve problems independently.

However, this means a much more difficult way of management than the traditional one. A Scrum Master should prefer dialogue and discussion over forcing, and guiding and asking questions over finding solutions for the Developers. This requires a lot of patience. But also decisiveness. After all, it’s not about leaving contentious issues unresolved.

That’s why Scrum Master has to master the skill of influencing the team. This requires high emotional intelligence. He usually doesn’t work in a position that would make him, in the traditional sense, the superior to the Development Team.

Seeing the big picture

The Scrum Master works inside the team, and does not look at the team’s work “from above”. However, this does not apply to all situations. By not being directly involved in the creation of the product, the Scrum Master can see patterns and dependencies that are invisible to the members of the Development Team.

This different perspective is also good for motivating others. It allows to set horizons for development and consistently supports the members of the Development Team in reaching them.

The ability to have a broader perspective of the team’s work will make it possible for a Scrum Master to suggest a systemic change in the approach, instead of helping the Developers to fix single, recurring mistakes. Energetic, another quality of a good Scrum Master, who can energize the team, also helps to support the new vision.

Good Scrum Master – summary

In today’s article we described the most important characteristics of a good Scrum Master:

great organization work
the ability to ask questions and use knowledge of others
managing by the influence
the ability to distance oneself

Obviously, the complete list of all Scrum master’s skills is vast. It’s safe to say though that it resembles the set of skills of a good project manager.

Conflict management, good persuasion, and teamwork skills are the foundations on which the detailed skills of a Scrum master arise.

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Author: Caroline Becker
As a Project Manager, Caroline is an expert in finding new methods to design the best workflows and optimize processes. Her organizational skills and ability to work under time pressure make her the best person to turn complicated projects into reality.
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Scrum Guide | 9. A good Scrum Master – traits