Unlock Success: Five Key Values for Scrum Masters
So far on the site, we’ve discussed several different topics and tools within agile product management. Let's turn that focus towards the team and the roles needed now to be great and remain agile in the workplace. There’s one role that’s overlooked, underrated and overrated all at once on every team, and that my friend is the Scrum Master. This sometimes controversial role can be held by members of the scrum team, while at other times, an individual works as the scrum master for one or multiple teams. But why is this sometimes divisive for companies new to agile? Well, that’s because many companies do it wrong and create or empower taskmasters and middle managers as scrum masters. When done right, the scrum master is a wonderful asset and key to value delivery.
Scrum masters are absolutely pivotal to the agile process. My preference is for a team member to hold the role of scrum master as one of many responsibilities instead of having a dedicated scrum master. The result is “roughly” the same (note, there’s a whole discussion to be had here because there are actually key differences, but often companies can’t or don’t want to afford a stand-alone scrum master). Scrum masters are change agents, and the point of entry for agile methodologies in the team. Most teams can start with whoever knows the most about scrum/agile or wants to read the most about it as the scrum master and kind of go from there. Other teams may pass this role around as needed.
The scrum master guides teams to optimize the work they complete and the value they deliver. They drive the relentless pursuit of perfection via continuous improvement that all agile teams are known for. Facilitating meetings and acting as a servant leader for anyone and everyone involved, the scrum master is like the water boy, the head coach and the team coordinator all in one package (Chiefs are in the playoffs at the time of writing this so pardon the NFL analogies, and go Chiefs!) There are five key values a scrum master is always trying to embody and encourage in their team via processes and inspections with the team.
1. Commitment
Commitment in agile product management comes up in committing to the work to be done in the next sprint. Every sprint, the team plans and commits to an increment of work but commitment, like all of the key values we’re discussing today, is a recurring theme in scrum/agile. The team needs to be protected from outside work so that they can stay committed and from stakeholder pressures as well. The scrum master acts as a defense to allow the team to continue with their work.
It’s not always possible to complete everything that’s committed while it’s the goal. Teams can over-commit or sometimes sprint interruptions and additions can make sprint completion rough. It’s not that the team can’t handle additions or pressure, it’s more about the morale and vibes of the team. Imagine a time when you’re trying to complete a complex task and you keep getting interrupted; it’s not a good experience to have over and over. The scrum master is there to enforce the commitment and make sure the rest of the company and stakeholders are aware of it.
The scrum master, themself, is also committed to the scrum values, principles and processes of scrum. They maintain that commitment and relay it to the team and different stakeholders when needed. The scrum master may face disbelief and know-it-all leaders who refuse to listen. This is unfortunately common in SaaS and probably other organization types as well. Stay the course and try to help; that’s all we can do in those situations. Lead by example constantly, meet your commitments and only commit with a good understanding of the goal to be accomplished. It can also help to increase transparency and discussions about commitments within and outside of the team. The company, itself, needs to commit to scrum for it to work as well, and that can also fall on the scrum master to promote.
2. Courage
The courage agile product management requires should not be overlooked. Agile product management requires fearlessly embracing the process and the mission to create value as frequently and painlessly as possible. A scrum master should never shy away from challenges, whether they be complex operational processes/application features or just rude leaders and co-workers. Don’t turn from a challenge; confront it head-on. The obstacle is the way. This fosters a psychologically safe environment for the team and everyone involved. Innovation requires psychological safety and a lack of innovation creates stagnation, customer retention problems and bad culture.
I was the agile coach for a software company that acquired a new CTO who had and probably still has major control issues and questionable cultural bias. He did not like agile so he questioned and hated on my scrum process and tried to undermine me constantly within the company without trying to understand it at all. I did not back down. I spoke about the power of agile/scrum and more and continued to beat the drum. He would find youtube videos to defend his point and consider the conversation over (more on that in my future book). This kind of ignorance should not be tolerated, in general, but unfortunately, it exists. It’s times like this where the courage to do the right thing and stay on the path is necessary and when a scrum master is truly tested. Having the courage to say something is right or wrong still has a role in work.
Courage isn’t confrontational, it’s collaborative and should be used to defend company, team and individual values and objectives. Leaders, teams and individuals need to have the courage to embrace change and embrace vulnerabilities. It takes courage to give honest feedback and to accept it. The scrum master should be courageous for the whole team and for the agile community to help coach teams and individuals to success. Courage holds the whole process together and allows teams to learn and grow from problems as they solve them. The best way to improve here is to start with yourself. If you’re the scrum master for a team or company, stand up for them and be bold in your support for improving the world of work and the lives of individuals in the workplace.
3. Focus
The nature of agile is fast when compared to waterfall approaches with the need for constant planning, refinement and work. The need for focus across the team and company is undisputed. The scrum master should be working to keep the focus on the small goal while not losing sight of any bigger initiatives. This element of focus can come into play with meetings to make sure meetings and time spent are focused and with a purpose and solid timebox. Focused sprint goals and retrospective meetings can exponentially improve the value delivery chain for your teams.
At work, there’s a constant onslaught of notifications from slack, jira, gmail, meetings and more that it can be hard to get work done. The scrum master monitors this focus and helps to harness it or redirect it if needed. The more focused your team is, the better it’ll collaborate. Remember Conway's law here, the quality of your product is correlated to the quality of your internal processes and collaboration. A lack of focus in one team or role can have rippling repercussions on the product and company morale over time. The scrum master should keep scrum theory in focus and help the team and company to do the same.
A team with focus can handle agility and adaptability in stride. As much as I was talking up commitment and courage earlier, there are times when the business or the market sets the requirement and it must be met. When that’s the case, a focused team aware of their goals and processes can task switch better than an unfocused one. While multi-tasking is best avoided of course, it has to be done in modern teams for various reasons. A focus on quality and standard of care will create a better product that can be released frequently with no reversions and few escaped defects.
4. Openness
To communicate effectively and efficiently, teams need to embrace openness. The scrum master is the champion here; it’s on them to keep communication open otherwise continuous improvement is not possible. The scrum master can do this by encouraging everyone to participate and by recognizing different points of view. Diversity in perspectives, background, mindset and more leads to increased innovation, but openness has to be there to make it happen. An open culture is a trusting and collaborative culture where team members are all heard and respected.
Openness allows teams to discuss problems and challenges as soon as they are found and allows everyone to weigh in on their solutions when needed. An open culture creates cohesive teams working together to accomplish goals and create value. The scrum master needs to be open to all the different team members, and, in turn, team members need to embrace this to be open to agile and accept the agile mindset and process. Change is not easy, but it’s impossible if you stay close-minded. Change is the goal here. Constant incremental changes, moving in the right direction, are the heartbeat of agile teams.
The scrum master can once again promote openness through their actions and in serving others on the team. Leading by example allows the scrum master to set the tone for the team and the atmosphere of the problem-solving stage. This can be a game-changer for a team if they haven’t experienced it before. Start making the environment safer and friendlier and you’ll see innovation bloom followed by customer and stakeholder satisfaction.
5. Respect
This is an obvious one, right? Respect should be paramount for scrum masters. Respect for individuals, products, budgets, teams, stakeholders, processes, life and everything else allows the agile/scrum process to flourish. It sounds obvious, but many workplaces I’ve been in have not been respectful at all. From redoing other’s work, to stealing projects and credit, people do weird things at work. I’ve been a part of company cultures where calling out a problem was deemed inflammatory, and I’m happy to say those companies didn’t do well. (I see you Akerna.)
The scrum master should represent and encourage respect for everyone in all interactions and conversations. Sometimes in work, tensions can get high but having a healthy amount of respect for everyone can help teams find a resolution and/or compromise. Scrum masters should listen to people on the team to understand what their intentions are through active listening and provide constructive feedback at the right times. Acknowledging the contributions of individuals and teams overall is also necessary to keep morale high and show that respect is there for everyone and what they’re doing on the team.
To help the team out here, the scrum master should assist with identifying and handling conflict as soon as possible. It’s not that conflict is bad. It’s natural when people care about what they are doing. However, there are respectful and disrespectful ways to handle it, and the scrum master is there to help the team choose the former. Saying a team should value respect can be discarded as a nicety at times, but it should be taken with the utmost seriousness to allow each team member to thrive and contribute all that they can to their work. The cultural effects within a respectful company relay out to their customers and improve customer acquisition and retention.
Conclusion
There are good scrum masters, and there are great scrum masters. These five key values distinguish them: commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect. They can each be discussed separately, but in reality, they're all intertwined like a double helix of scrum values. Each impacts the next, and all of them should be embraced by agile teams. The scrum master's role is to embrace them first and coach the team to success. Many of these are values for life in general, but we’ll try to keep the focus here on agile product management.
If you’re implementing scrum and don’t have a scrum master, you’re not implementing scrum, sorry. Having somebody wear this hat and continue to push agile/scrum changes and continuous improvement should not be overlooked. With better commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect, you’ll end up creating a better culture, better products/services and happier individuals while also profiting and maintaining a steady state of innovation. Google’s research on determining what makes a great team determined it’s the psychological safety of the team that allows them to be great. The five key values of scrum could be rephrased as the five key values of psychological safety. Get out there and advocate for agile on your teams and products. These traits may be key to scrum mastering, but they are needed by all.
“Dig deep; the water — goodness — is down there. And as long as you keep digging, it will keep bubbling up.” - Marcus Aurelius