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Agile Scrum Roles: What Is the Role of the Scrum Master?
What Is the Role of the Scrum Master?
The agile Scrum features three roles: team members, Product Owner, and the Scrum Master.
“ Master” implies a sense of control or authority. In Agile, it comes with a different set of requirements. A Scrum Master is a leader who helps bind the team together and encourages the team to stay on track.
Ultimately, the Scrum Master is the Agile and Scrum guru to whom any member of the team — or any stakeholder — can turn.
Scrum Masters are a benefit to any team when empowered in an appropriate way. Keep reading to learn what a Scrum Master is, what they do, and how to avoid the pitfalls of the role in Agile.
What Is the Scrum Master?
The Scrum Master is the member of the team responsible for championing the agile principles and values of the team. Whoever fills this role keeps the team coaching and mentoring them back towards the agile practices and processes they committed to as part of agile.
Scrum Masters are common roles even among non-agile teams. In other scenarios, you might hear them called iteration managers or team coaches.
Does the Scrum Master Have Any Authority?
The term “master” invokes visions of authority because it reflects other roles like “taskmaster.” However, a Scrum Master isn’t a manager nor do they hold any real authority.
The person who fills this role does manage the process and influences the team and the stakeholders. Servant leadership is a key perspective incorporated into the Scrum Master role to enable Scrum Masters to fulfill their purpose.
With servant leadership in mind, the scrum master is the scrum team’s servant first, and they serve by following the twelve principles of servant leadership, which include:
Using these principles, the scrum master doesn’t wield authority as such but instead teaches, coaches, motivates, and inspires critical stakeholders and empowers all people working within the Scrum Framework.
