What is expected from the Scrum Master?
• Scrum Coach: The Scrum Master coaches the Scrum Team and ensures that it understands and adheres to the Scrum way of working that include Scrum theory, practices, rules, and values. As needed, the Scrum Master facilitates the events for the Product Owner and Development Team and ensures timeboxing.
• Servant Leadership: Instead of commanding and controlling, the Scrum Master has a strong inclination to serve the team by helping them to realize their own potential. The Scrum Master facilitates the team to become self-organized by coaching them to come up with a work plan and make daily decisions by themselves.
• Removes Impediments: While the Scrum Master mentors the team to solve issues by themselves, they own and remove other impediments that are outside the influence of the Team. In organizations starting Scrum, the Scrum Teams may get a lot of external interruptions and requests for additional tasks. The Scrum Master helps those outside the Scrum Team understand which of their interactions with the Scrum Team are helpful and which aren’t. The Scrum Master helps everyone change these interactions to maximize the value created by the Scrum Team.
• Champion of Transparency: The Scrum Master helps the team to increase transparency of planned work, actual progress, and impediments. The Scrum Master spends time detecting incomplete transparency by inspecting the artifacts, sensing patterns, listening closely to what is being said and not being said, and detecting differences between expected and real results.
-------------------Question- 11--------------------------
Which of the following statements is true?
a) Scrum Master is a management position. A person with strong project management experience in delivering results is a good fit.
b) Scrum Master is an optional position. An alternative is to train the team on Scrum before they start, and they can self-organize without a Scrum Master.
c) Scrum Master is a management position. A person with Scrum experience and a coaching style of servant leadership is a good fit.
d) None of the above.
-------Answer-------
The Scrum Master is required to have Scrum experience and a strong inclination towards a Servant Leadership style. It is a mandatory position in order to keep the Scrum Team and the organization focused on Scrum. Although the Scrum Master does not directly manage people, the role is a management position because the Scrum Master manages the Scrum framework implementation. Correct answer is ‘c.’
-------------------Question- 11--------------------------
Additional services to the Development Team:
• The Scrum Team can expect the Scrum Master to coach them to become a cross-functional team and help them create high-value products. They can also expect the Scrum Master to coach them on how to handle organizational forces in less mature Scrum environments.
• The Scrum Team can expect the Scrum Master's help, whenever required, to find the best sub-techniques to accomplish their work within the Scrum framework. An example of a sub-technique is using a burn-down graphic to track progress of product completion and Sprint Backlog completion.
Additional services to the Product Owner
• Finding techniques for effective Product Backlog management.
• Helping the Scrum Team understand the need for clear and concise Product Backlog Items.
• Understanding product planning in an empirical environment.
• Ensuring the Product Owner knows how to arrange the Product Backlog to maximize value.
• A non-cooperative Product Owner is an impediment to be resolved by the Scrum Master.
• If a parallel or competing authority to the Product Owner directs or interferes with the team’s work, then this is an impediment that needs to be resolved by the Scrum Master. As a first step, the Scrum Master may need to coach the Product Owner about the sole authority they only have in deciding what the team should work.
• Ensuring that goals, scope, and product domain are understood by everyone on the Scrum Team.
-------------------Question- 12-a--------------------------
Select all that apply. What are some examples of Product Backlog management techniques where a Scrum Master can coach the Product Owner and the Development Team?
a) Creating a common standard that defines the preferred level of description and transparency each Product Backlog Item should meet before introducing them in Sprint Planning. The Team can then use this standard as a guideline to decompose the Items.
b) In addition to using value, a Product Owner can choose input from the Development Team on ordering the items based on their technical coherence.
c) Choosing a tool to manage the Product Backlog.
d) Techniques like writing the items in the form of user stories and their Acceptance Tests.
-------Answer-------
A Scrum Master coaches the Development Team and the Product Owner about managing the Product Backlog to facilitate empiricism-based product planning and arranging the items so that the order can maximize overall value. The Scrum Master also coaches the Product Owner to collaborate with the Development Team on ordering. Correct answers are ‘a,’ ‘b,’ and ‘d.’
-------------------Question- 12-a--------------------------
-------------------Question- 12-b--------------------------
A Development Team does not have enough understanding of the domain of the Product they develop. The Scrum Master need not take an active interest in improving this issue as it is not related to Scrum.
a) True.
b) False.
-------Answer-------
A Scrum Master coaches the Development Team to create high-value products. Part of the coaching, the Scrum Master ensures that goals, scope, and product domain are understood by everyone on the Scrum Team. Correct answer is ‘b.’
-------------------Question- 12-b--------------------------
Services to the Organization
• The Scrum Master coaches Scrum to the stakeholders on how they should interact with the Scrum Team in order to maximize the value of the product created.
• The organization can expect the Scrum Master to coach the employees about Scrum and empirical product development and self-organization to cause organizational change.
• Further it can expect the Scrum Master to help plan Scrum implementations, collaborate with stakeholders and other fellow Scrum Masters to drive the organization-wide Scrum adoption, and increase the productivity of the Scrum Teams.
-------------------Question- 13--------------------------
The role of the Scrum Master with respect to the Scrum artifacts is to:
a) Coach the Team to increase the transparency of the artifacts.
b) Decide the format of the artifacts and ensure that the Team follows it.
c) Own the artifacts and be responsible for keeping them up to date.
-------Answer-------
Correct answer is ‘a.’
-------------------Question- 13--------------------------
Rules
The Scrum Master need not be a technical member of the Development Team. They can be full-time or part-time for a Scrum Team. They are usually a Scrum Master for more than one Scrum Team in parallel. It is mandatory for the Scrum Master to participate in all events except the Daily Scrum.
-------------------Question- 14--------------------------
In a Scrum Team, if the Scrum Master is also a Developer, then
a) They should not participate in the Daily Scrum.
b) They must participate in the Daily Scrum.
c) They can participate in the Daily Scrum only if the Development Team invites them.
-------Answer-------
Every Developer must participate in all the events of Scrum. In this case, the Scrum Master is also a Developer. Correct answer is ‘b.’
-------------------Question- 14--------------------------
Summary
• The Scrum Master is responsible for promoting and supporting Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. Scrum Masters do this by helping everyone understand Scrum theory, practices, rules, and values.
• The Scrum Master is a servant-leader for the Scrum Team. The Scrum Master helps those outside the Scrum Team understand which of their interactions with the Scrum Team are helpful and which aren’t. The Scrum Master helps everyone change these interactions to maximize the value created by the Scrum Team.
• The Scrum Master also removes impediments and is the champion of transparency.
• They facilitate Scrum events as requested or needed.
• They serve the Product Owner in finding techniques for effective Product Backlog management, understanding product planning in an empirical environment, and knowing how to arrange the Product Backlog to maximize value. The Scrum Master ensures that goals, scope, and product domain are understood by everyone on the Scrum Team as well as possible.
• They serve the Development Team in coaching self-organization and cross-functionality, helping to create high-value products, and removing impediments to the Development Team’s progress.
• They serve the organization in its Scrum adoption, planning Scrum implementations within the organization, helping employees and stakeholders understand and enact Scrum and empirical product development, causing change that increases the productivity of the Scrum Team, and working with other Scrum Masters to increase the effectiveness of the application of Scrum in the organization.