What Does a Scrum Master Actually Do All Day? with Hal Hogue and Michael Guiler

Agile Coaches' Corner

This week, Dan Neumann is joined by two of his Agile Thought colleagues, Hal Hogue and Mike Guiler to discuss a very particular question: What does a Scrum Master actually do all day?

In this episode, Dan, Hal, and Mike start by exploring what a Scrum Master does not do, then they discuss the many hats a Scrum Master wears, and how these several duties impact a Team’s performance. A Scrum Master provides tools and autonomy and makes sure that each Team member knows their accountabilities and the reasons behind the work they do.

Key Takeaways

• What doesn’t a Scrum Master do all day?
• • A Scrum Master is not a calendar manager type person.
  • A Scrum Master does not keep visualization tools updated.
  • A Scrum Master is not the one updating the Sprint backlog.
  • A Scrum master does not take notes in meetings nor collect the status of people.
• The many roles of a Scrum Master:
• • A Scrum Master needs to guide the Team for them to be in control of their own destiny.
  • Helping everyone inside and outside of the Scrum Team understand who is accountable for what.
  • A Scrum master does not need to schedule all the events, but he needs to focus on how every member of the Team gets the maximum possible amount of value from each of the events, and that takes time and preparation. Mike, Dan, and Hal dive deep into the example of Retrospective Meetings.
  • A Scrum Master needs to be a teacher and help the Scrum Team understand why they are doing what they are doing.
• A Scrum Master is a facilitator and teacher and also a coach.
• • Helping unlock the potential in others, assisting the Team members by learning from their own experiences.
  • A Scrum Master needs to help the Team to become self-managed and understand how the company functions.
• A Scrum Master should foster transparency.
• • A safe environment needs to be nurtured in the first place in order for transparency to be welcomed.
  • The Team has to know why being transparent is actually helpful.
  • Scrum has artifacts to increase transparency.

Mentioned in this Episode:

• The Zombie Scrum Surviving Guide, by Christiaan Verwijs, Johannes Schartau, and Barry Overeem
• Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale, by Jez Humble, Joanne Molesky, and Barry O’Reilly
• Listen to “Episode 178: Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM) with Sarah Skillman and Mary Demain”

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