What Does A Scrum Master Do All Day Long? What Activities And Responsibilities Does A Scrum Master P

By Author: Mrugesh panchal
Total Articles: 48
Comment this article

The scrum master plays an important role in scrum implementation. Most individuals familiar with scrum and its working know that the scrum master has many activities to perform, and the role demands full time dedication as far as work and responsibilities are concerned. The job of a scrum master is not part time. Moreover, it is not an easy role to play. For scrum beginners and novices it is worth finding out what kinds of responsibilities and tasks a scrum master is liable to perform.

So, what does a scrum master do all day long?

Holding meetings
In scrum methodology, meetings play an integral part in gathering feedback from the team members and planning the sprint activity. The main meetings in scrum are:

• Sprint planning meeting
• Daily scrum meeting or the daily stand up
• Sprint review meeting
• Sprint retrospective meeting
The scrum master has to remain present in all the meetings and facilitate the meeting process. He or she is required to:
• ...
... Prepare
• Moderate
• Post process
the meeting.

Effectuating team dynamics
• Coaching the team members as and when required (e.g. one-on-one coaching while “mentoring” a team member in need)
• Mediating with the team members when conflicts arise
• Facilitating and helping the team to make informed and effective decisions
• Fostering the scrum team and increasing the confidence levels
• Representing the development team when issues and problems arise and negotiating with the stakeholders for possible solutions

Support learning and self-correction
• Supporting scrum related learning (e.g. visiting end user groups, attending conferences, studying reference books and material, writing blogs, etc.)
• Consulting other team members when technical issues are faced and need to be resolved
• Creating reliable and effective information generation mechanisms and processes
• Providing proper and useful feedback to the entire team
• Encouraging the usage of scrum practices and promoting scrum to the team members (A lot of time is required to explain and promote one click releases, consistent delivery of product increment through sprints, identifying feature flags, and much more)
• Suggest innovative methods in scrum framework
• Communicating and sharing views and opinions with other scrum masters (Remain conversant with recent market trends and know about new scrum master techniques and practices)

Product related activities
• Writing and splitting large epics and user stories (product backlog items)
• Writing, adapting, and supporting the product vision
• Defining and prioritizing the product backlog items in the product backlog
• Planning the release
• Becoming familiar with the way how the team works and functions

Taking the initiative
• Collaborating and bringing the team together
• Remain in touch with the stakeholders on a regular basis
• Aiding the team while submitting reports to the management
• Help to promote scrum methodology within the organization
• Organizing public relation events for the team, the stakeholders, and the organization
• Sharing product promotion insights and thoughts with the company (guest blogging, micro blogging, SMM, press releases, blogging, etc.)
• Being a single point-of-contact for everything and everyone related to scrum in the organization
• Creating opportunities for learning scrum for the stakeholders and other individuals in the organization (e.g. crash courses, talks, and workshops)

Suggesting changes
• Suggesting new methods and principles to get rid of problems and impediments
• Suggesting new methods and metrics to improve scrum implementation

Monitoring
• Monitoring whether Agile and scrum values are supported and followed by the team
• Implementing and monitoring scrum policies
• Keeping tabs and aiding the team to continually improve the scrum process
• Observing, discussing, and analyzing the issues faced by the team as and when they occur
• Asking questions and demanding explanations during the daily scrum meetings
• Verifying scrum artifacts and facilitating the events (e.g. sprint backlogs, sprint planning meetings, performance metrics, etc.) and presenting the project status to the team

Miscellaneous activities
• Helping the team to remain focused and result oriented
• Helping the scrum team in maintaining their scrum artifacts (story board, task board, burn down charts, backlogs, etc.)
• Helping the team as well as the product owner in finding consistent methods and practices to achieve the definition of “done”