Clarify sentence from Scrum Guide "The Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness"
Hi all,
I was curious to hear opinions about this sentence from the Scrum Guide 2020:
The Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness. They do this by enabling the Scrum Team to improve its practices, within the Scrum framework.
From the Oxford dictionary, effectiveness is: "the degree to which something is successful in producing a desired result; success."
Does that mean for example that if the team is not successful in one Sprint the Scrum Master is to the person to point at and the person that should make sure the same thing does not happen again? Or is it more in the longer term?
In the second part of the sentence (improve the team's practices), it sounds to me like it's about improving efficiency. I feel like Scrum Master's play a big role in improving efficiency but that's not mentioned in the Scrum Guide.
How do you interpret this sentence?
Does that mean for example that if the team is not successful in one Sprint the Scrum Master is to the person to point at and the person that should make sure the same thing does not happen again?
No need to point, the message is, "I have failed, please help me to succeed". A good Scrum Master is the first person to be vulnerable.
In the second part of the sentence (improve the team's practices), it sounds to me like it's about improving efficiency. I feel like Scrum Master's play a big role in improving efficiency but that's not mentioned in the Scrum Guide.
He or she will manage the Scrum Framework by managing people's understanding of it, so they can then self-manage more effectively. To this end a good Scrum Master is far more likely to reveal than to resolve.
Based on the quoted dictionary definition, success may be a binary choice, effectiveness isn't. Increasing effectiveness means getting closer to achieving the goal. However, success only happens when the goal is actually achieved. A team may demonstrate increasing effectiveness while still not having success.
Success may also vary based on the perspective of different stakeholders. A user or customer may see a Sprint as successful if the Sprint Goal is achieved. However, a team learning and applying Scrum for the first time may find success in continually getting closer to being able to craft an achievable Sprint Goal.
It would be shortsighted to look at a single Sprint. You need to take a long view - several Sprints, at least. Sprint-over-Sprint, the team's Scrum Master should be helping the team to increase their effectiveness and get closer to regular, Sprint-over-Sprint success. If, after several Sprints, the team shows no increase in effectiveness, then the Scrum Master should be able to explain that to key stakeholders and work to resolve impediments to increasing effectiveness. If the Scrum Master is neither increasing effectiveness nor working to find and eliminate impediments to increasing effectiveness, then perhaps a new Scrum Master or a different approach to the work would be necessary.