First 30 days

Your team has that same 30 days to produce at least one Done, finished increment which is put to use and learned from. Establish transparency over whether that is really happening.

What are the impediments which constrain empiricism in this organization? A big challenge can be figuring out how to shine a light in the sore places of a company without being fired.

First 30 days:   

• Observe how the team operates
• Learn how the Scrum Team understands the Scrum framework
• Observe how entities outside of the Scrum Team interact with the Scrum Team
• Help the Scrum Team and outside entities with their understanding of the Scrum framework
• Build a relationship with the Scrum Team and outside entities that interact with the Scrum Team
• Help the organization and team benefit from the iterative delivery of value that the Scrum framework provides.

Day 31 to eternity

• See bullets under First 30 days

This is a link to the section of the Scrum Guide in English that describes the Scrum Master's accountabilities. (https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html#scrum-master).  If English is not a strong language, you can get copies of the Scrum Guide in many other languages (https://scrumguides.org/download.html).  

A Scrum Master's tasks and the challenges they face are always changing.  But the work you do never does. Maintain your focus on the Scrum Master responsibilities and then adapt your activities as needed.

Every organization will be different.  Every Scrum Team will be different.  Because of this empiricism is key to a Scrum Master's survival.  Inspect, Adapt, Repeat.

Hi Ian & Daniel,

Appreciate your inputs!

Would you recommend a coaching approach to bring sore areas into light? Are there strategies to give such feedback (without being fired in the first 30 days :D)?

Could you share some stakeholder relationship building approaches that have worked for you?

Regards,

Joseph

Don't shine a light in a harsh way. Learn to be good at wondering about the things you see, and be the first one to be vulnerable.

How do you know if there are areas to bring to light?  A Scrum Master doesn't look for "items that are wrong".  A Scrum Master looks for opportunities that might improve the ability of teams to adapt to change more quickly and deliver value to the stakeholder predictably.  In my opinion, 30 days is not enough time to truly understand where those opportunities exist.  That would be 4 Sprints at most (if they are doing 1 week Sprints) and it isn't easy to identify patterns with that small of a sample size.  

Be patient, be observant, be available.  Those are some of the best traits a Scrum Master can have.  Remember that Scrum is about making incremental changes.  Not just to products but to everything.  It is about inspecting and adapting as new information is discovered.  Don't look for a single thing that will magically make everything better.  Look for small opportunities to experiment and inspect the results.