Scrum mastery is more than just Agile coaching

"An Agile Coach know more than just Scrum", said one consultant in a boardroom meeting, "he/she knows organisation dynamics, executive coaching and other Agile practices like Kanban and DevOps", he continued.

"Stay silent, no need to correct him in this kind of forum", my inner voice said to myself, "take a deep breath".

I have seen many instances how the Scrum Master is perceived to have a smaller scope than an Agile Coach or know much less than an Agile Coach or only takes care of the Development Team. In a worst-case scenario, I have seen how the Scrum Master is seen as someone who is more inferior and reports to the Agile Coach. Many enterprises created a hierarchy where the Agile Coach is the boss of the Scrum Master.

So I went to do some research on how did people came to this conclusion because from personal experience I do not feel that the scope of work of a Scrum Master is smaller than an Agile Coach nor knows less about other Agile practices than an Agile Coach.

The Premise

Scrum is only one of the many Agile methodologies

Okay, I know Agile is not a methodology, but this is how many people see Agile. Agile is seen as a collection of methodologies and Scrum is one of the many methodologies that fall under the umbrella of Agile. So Agile Coach is seen as somebody who knows many Agile methodologies.

Scrum is just a framework that consists of core elements and built on values and principles. To be honest, there is not much in Scrum, it is quite configurable to many different context. How Scrum is played and how the core elements are configured in different organisations will be different. Scrum core elements provides built-in feedback loops, provides clear area of accountability and increases transparency that helps product development in complex environment. And those configurations and the strategy how Scrum is played may look something like eXtreme Programming (XP) or DevOps or may have Kanban within it.

As Scrum is only a framework, it can even be used at the executive level for managing business strategies or even Enterprise transformations as written in Agility Guide.

Scrum Master is only focused on coaching at the team level

Many Scrum literature and training positioned the Scrum Master at the team level hence people came to a conclusion that Scrum Master is a team level role like a traditional technical leader. Scrum Guide itself mention that besides the Development Team and the Product Owner, the Scrum Master needs to also serve the whole organisation in understanding Scrum values and principles.

In Professional Scrum Master Course, we discussed how Scrum Master needs to coach other parties in the organisation like the executives even HR on understanding Scrum values and principles to help organisations becoming more agile. We believe that coaching the Development Team only leads to sub-optimal result. Scrum Master also need to go beyond coaching, he/she must master other stances like facilitation, mentoring, teaching and servant-leadership too.

Agile is more important than Scrum

"Agile is more important than Scrum", said one developer to me once. Agility is very important to Scrum and the end goal of Scrum agility. Implementing Scrum should not make agility as secondary in the organisation. That is just the wrong thinking. Both of the co-founders of Scrum contributed to the agile manifesto, they're behind the agile movement. What many people know about Scrum are just the ceremonies and story points and velocity.

One of the principles of Scrum is continuous-learning. By continuously learning, organisations should become more agile from time to time. Agility is important in Scrum and it is the end goal in Scrum. When organisations are becoming less agile after using Scrum, we need to check whether Scrum values and principles are being upheld in the organisation. Perhaps the organisations are more focused on mechanical Scrum than professional Scrum.

Scrum Master is the master in Scrum values & principles

I still remember when Ken Schwaber told me that Scrum is just empiricism, lean thinking and bottom-up collective intelligence so Scrum Master literaly means master in empiricism, lean thinking and bottom-up collective intelligence. It was a big slap in the face for me because at that time I've been focusing on Scrum mechanics and ceremonies. That event really change my perspective about Scrum. The core elements in Scrum as written in Scrum Guide is to support these foundational thinking. The values in Scrum differentiates whether an organisation is doing a mechanical Scrum or a professional Scrum. And when an organisation is upholding the foundational thinking and living the values, it should increases organisation agility.

Scrum Master is the master in empiricism

In empiricism, no assumptions are true until it is validated and there are no universal absolute truths. It is easy to make predictions based on assumptions. Traditional project management approach are based on this predictive thinking which often leads to lack of transparency and at worst team member dissatisfaction and low-quality products. The Scrum Master is the master in empiricism. He/she is able to increase transparency in the organisation starting from the core elements in Scrum so assumptions and politics has no room to play in the organisation. With his/her mastery in empiricism, he/she is able to help organisation grow their own agile model rather than just copying-pasting other organisation's model.

Scrum Master is the master in Lean thinking

Lean is about removing non-value added activities from the value stream. The Scrum Master often go down the genba to identify waste. Impediments are waste that Scrum Master need to remove to help the Development Team deliver increments. The events in Scrum has a clear purpose and are designed so that no other meetings that may lead to waste of time and waste of creativity are needed during the product delivery. The roles in Scrum helps increase collaboration and remove silos that may lead to wasteful hand-offs, multi-tasking and approvals. Scrum Master use the core elements in Scrum and Lean thinking to continuously remove waste.

Scrum Master is the master in maximising bottom-up collective intelligence

The Scrum Master creates a psychologically-safe work environment so people can thrive. With his/her mastery, he/she creates a blameless work environment to maximise bottom-up collective intelligence. Because one of the values in Scrum is courage, many times the Scrum Master needs to jump out of his/her own safety zone to talk to the management or even the executives so a psychologically-safe can exists in the organisation. It is easy to to use top-down authority to tell people to do what we want but it is not as easy as it looks to influence others to maximise bottom-up collective intelligence. There are inherent cultural issues that the Scrum Master need to navigate within.

Scrum Master is the master in Scrum values

When the values of commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect are embodied and lived by the Scrum Team, the Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation come to life and build trust for everyone.
-- Scrum Guide

The elements in Scrum is the manifestation of teams living the Scrum values. It is easy sometimes to focus on what can be seen like the mechanics and the ceremonies the team is doing and we come to think that is the whole purpose of Scrum. The Scrum Master is the master to use Scrum values as a compass to identify the root cause of organisation's dysfunctions.

Scrum Master is the master in agile practices

Scrum is a frame-work. As with pictures, a good frame doesn't guarantee the picture inside would be beautiful. It just holds it in place.

— Andy Brandt

Scrum is a frame that provides structure for agiity. The 17-pages Scrum Guide is barely enough to deliver great products. It is quite surprising to see many people just rely on what is written then blame Scrum when everything falls apart. Scrum Guide is deliberately designed as thin as possible so that people can discover other complimentary practices using their ingenuity. The Scrum Master is the master who maximise collective intelligence to discover Scrum complimentary practices that will increase agility inside the organisation.

At Scrum.org we help people to complement other agile practices like Kanban and technical practices like test driven development & continuous delivery with Scrum. There will be more agile complementary practices planned for the future.

Scrum Master is the master of many stances

Scrum Guide mention some stances that the Scrum Master need to play depending on the context and the situation. The Scrum Master knows when to be a coach, a facilitator, a teacher, a mentor and a servant-leader. It takes years to master these stances and know when to play each stances effectively. Coaching is just one of the stance that the Scrum Master need to play.

Scrum Master is the master in coaching

Coaching in short is about unleashing awesomeness from each individuals through self-discovery. Coaching uses techniques and tools to help individuals or groups of people discover their own solution. As written on Scrum Guide, in Scrum, not only the Scrum Master coach the Development Team and the Product Owner, but the Scrum Master also coaches everyone else in the organisation. The coaching body of knowledge is quite large. To be able to coach the whole organisation, the Scrum Master need to also master behavioural science, executive coaching and organisation dynamics.

Scrum Master is the master in mentoring

Your greatest contribution in life is not something you do but someone you raise.
-- Andy Stanley

While coaching is about unleashing awesomeness, mentoring has a different purpose. Mentoring is about passing down values to the next generation, it is about investing in other people's life. Mentoring is about mutual learning. Not only the mentee learn from the mentor, the mentor will also learn from the mentee. Unlike coaching, mentoring bring personal life experience. A Scrum Master can not be a great mentor if he/she does not have much experience to share and pass down to the mentee. A mentor also has charisma that is able to attract others. This is what makes people follow the Scrum Master, not because he/she has authority (because the Scrum Master do not have one) but because he/she has charisma.

Scrum Master is the master in teaching

Teaching is one of the stances that the Scrum Master need to master. Teaching adult is different and not easy to do it effectively. When not done effectively, people get bored and do not own the whole learning process. I found one of the best teaching methods is the Montessori method where it encourage students to select what they want to learn throughout the day. Montessori method encourages failing forward and the tools provided in the school provides a self-corrective action for students to learn from their own failure with minimum teacher assistance. I steal many of the principles from Montessori method to teaching people about Scrum and other agile practices. A Scrum Master is a master in teaching and knows when to be a teacher and when to stop being a teacher.

Scrum Master is the master in the art of facilitation

facilis (Latin): to render easy.

Facilitation comes from the Latin word facilis which literally means to render easy. So the goal of facilitation to make tough discussion, whether that is brainstorming, negotiation or conflicts to become easy and provide mutual outcome. At its core, the Scrum Master facilitates the events in Scrum. Outside of Scrum Guide, the Scrum Master may need to facilitate tough discussion with the executives or management and the customer. Effective facilitation should lead to increased understanding, increased trust, increased learning, reduced conflict, reduced defensiveness and fewer self-fulfilling & self-sealing process. The Scrum Master is able to navigate in between organisation politics to facilitate effective discussion. Therefore poor decisions made by the group facilitated is partly the facilitator's inefectiveness in facilitating. The Scrum Master is the master in facilitation process that lead to shared decision that is owned by the whole group.

Scrum Master is the master of servant leadership

Servant Leader is the stance that the Scrum Master need to master, a stance that I constantly fail to do well from time-to-time. In a world where people are focused to self-fulfill their personal agenda, being a servant leader where the goal is to fulfill other people's agenda first is definitely not easy. As a servant leader, the Scrum Master is selfless, humble, compassionate, open to his/her own vulnerability and caring. His/her agenda is not for personal glory but for the greatness of those who he/she is serving. I've written about servant leadership in Scrum here.

Closing

The Scrum Master is definitely not a role that is less than Agile Coach. The Scrum Master does not have a smaller scope than an Agile Coach inside the organisation. The Scrum Master is the master of other agile practices that complements Scrum like Kanban, Lean UX and DevOps, with his/her mastery he/she is able to discover complementary practices that is able to increase organisation agility. The Scrum Master also coach not only at the team level but also at the organisation level, helping the executives and other departments like HR and Marketing to understand the values and principles behind Scrum. But the Scrum Master is not only a master in coaching, but also in other stances, like teaching, facilitation, mentoring and servant-leadership.

For me personally there are still many things that I haven't master yet and there are still lots of room for improvement to be the master in Scrum. How about you yourself? Where are you now in your journey of Scrum Mastery? Hopefully this article inspire you to be an awesome Scrum Master and identify the gaps to being the Scrum Master. Don't forget to leave a comment below.

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