Opinion Needed: Scrum Master tasks
Hi everyone.
I'm a fresh Scrum Master having some trouble finding myself in my new role and especially filling a full-time position and would like to gather some opinions, ideas, or experiences that could help me in my situation. I'm not sure how much I should go into detail, so please forgive the long text. :)
A brief view on Scrum background:
Before becoming a Scrum Master, I've been part of 3 different Scrum teams in different roles (only one team had a scrum master). All of those teams consisted of different departments, so e.g. art, concept, quality assurance, backend, front end, project manager, etc. My first scrum team had a PO who trained to become a scrum master and hence used us to experiment and try out different methods. Our team was very passionate about work and we got along really well so it was fun and we supported her in her new role. The second team was very well structured and processes were polished to perfection. We used Scrumban and were very strict on keeping the processes efficient and saving time. Every meeting had its purpose, everybody knew what that purpose was and sought to uphold it. We were also very honest and open with each other, not just in retros. The third team was not as devoted or structured as the other teams I was in but still it was well experienced with scrum and processes were quickly adjusted to the teams needs.
Now after some twists and turns in my career, I've decided to try out the role of scrum master. I did a special course for both scrum master and scrum product owner and joined a company this year in July in my first scrum master job.
My current situation:
While I like several aspects of the job and do feel that I could be good at it, I am having some trouble really finding myself in it, defining the boundaries of my job and especially filling my full-time job with tasks.
My team consists of currently 5 people with a few freelancers hopping in and out of the team every now and then. They can be quite self-organized when it comes to their current task (asking for assistance inside their department or contacting the customer directly to sort out matters) but not so much when it comes to planning their tasks for a sprint or thinking outside their department. While they work well together, they are not open or honest with each other. Team dynamics vary greatly depending on who is present (sick or on holiday) and of cause there are stronger changes if a team member leaves or joins the team. In these 5 months I've had several freelancers joining the team, one change of product owner, two team members leaving the team, then rejoining again and several cases of sudden and longer sickness.
In other words: Lots of storming material.
Also you could say this means lots of work for me a scrum master, right? The trouble is, when times get stressy or especially shaky due to team member changes, my team likes to go against scrum meetings. Pretty much all of them though retros and reviews are the ones mostly revolted against. Our company still has quite the meeting culture which means coaching or workshops outside our regularly scheduled scrum meetings I can pretty much forget because they won't be accepted. "That's what we have the scrum meetings for. We need to work at some point too." I should probably add that my team has 50% full-time and 50% half-time workers.
For personal coaching most of the team members don't trust me enough or they end up not being honest with me which caused new kinds of problems instead of solving them in a few past attempts I started.
So I see lots of room for improvement but I have very limited time to really work with the team or single members.
Impediments are still a little troublesome for me as well. Some of my team members don't proactively address them and I still have trouble hearing them out in the dailies. I hope that I'll get more experienced in this with time. Some of them they already solve themselves which is good of cause. Some are caused by the customer where I'm not sure if I should jump in or leave it up to the product owner to solve. Most of my time I spent with explaining scrum meetings and their purpose, their benefit over and over again, moderating meetings, planning retros, checking if I can improve processes influencing the team and doing so if in my power. Then I had said on- and offboardings of team members to take care of. My first product owner additionally used me to discuss his ideas and project strategies, team matters and future projects which I enjoyed a lot. We worked together really well. My new product owner sadly doesn't include me at all in her work and I get informed about future projects planned for the team or most other important team matters rather late and usually through different channels.
Now all of this results in me not being able to fill a full time position. I like working and am very enthusiastic about the tasks I take on. Which also means I work fast.
The team wants a full-time scrum master and I'm of the opinion that it could use one but then again I'm not really able to fill 40 hours a week with the few things I can do as a scrum master. I really don't know how or where to begin to make myself able to work with this team or what other things I could do as a scrum master in this environment.
So just to have something to do and to find a bit more security with my job I'm now doing a lot of self... development? Going through my personal strengths and weaknesses, skills etc. and how I could use them in my scrum master role, trying to define the role for myself, what kind of tasks I do and which ones not, etc. But even with that I still have 2 hours each day, sometimes more where I don't have anything to do.
I try to fill those with other topics like introducing first aid to the company fulfilling the rules and such or taking on other small projects but... I don't know. Is that how it's supposed to be? I would love to do more scrum master tasks, to do more with my team or more agile coaching or... all of those things but I just don't know how.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not really unhappy with my company. They are very willing to support me and help me to grow in a way I've never experienced in any other company and I am very grateful for that. They appreciate my work and enthusiasm and try to improve their culture and processes. The problem is I don't really know what would help me in this regard. Asking for other projects is not what I want to do on a regular basis since I would like to fill as many hours with scrum master activities as possible. But I absolutely hate to not have anything to do or fill all those left over hours with learning and self-development. I like doing that but it's not why I was hired and it's not what I want to do half of my working time either.
So here is my question: Is there anything you think I could be doing? Are there tasks/aspects I'm missing out or forgetting that I could engage in or is it maybe my company or my team that just doesn't enable a scrum master to work so many hours a week? At this point I feel an outsiders view might help me more than an inside view. Is there a way to improve my situation? Could I work on the teams trust in me to go more into personal coaching? Anything else?
Thoughts? Suggestions? Opinions? Anything helps.
Thanks a lot and sunny greetings,
Stephanie
I am a full Scrum Master for 2 (sometimes 3) teams and I am not busy all day long either. But since one of the Scrum Master's duties is to be available to help remove impediments, you can not know when that will occur. We have had this conversation within our Scrum Master group and it common across our entire team. I also feel a bit guilty about it but in reality, that is what our job is.
Also remember that agile will not make anyone busy at all times. It isn't intended to maximize hours worked, it is intended to produce value. In the case of a Scrum Master the value you are producing is evident via the team's productivity and self sufficiency.
My recommendation to you is to continue doing what you said you are doing. However, you might focus your energies on finding ways to help increase team cohesion, team dynamics and instilling appreciate of Scrum. That is not easy and is probably the hardest part of our jobs.
Don't feel guilty about not being busy for 40 hours a week especially since it sounds like your company is OK with it. You should be somewhat available to help address impediments and coach. Remember that anyone on the Scrum Team can have impediments. That includes you and the Product Owner. You have described a lot of impediments to your ability to do your job so work on those. Also remember that the Scrum Guide states that part of a Scrum Master's duties is to also coach the organization on how the Scrum framework affects them and how to best interact.
You will get a lot of good feedback in this forum. Much better feedback than I give. Use this as suggestions into your growth and good luck.
Are the team able to frame and meet clear Sprint Goals with consistency, and do they deliver “Done” work of release quality without technical debt?
that is what our job is.
@Daniel: Thanks for your opinion on the matter and the tips. That already helps me a lot. I will try to work on the issues you suggested though, as you stated, that will be quite the challenge. Luckily I like those the best! Thanks again. Much appreciated.
@Ian: Yes and no. We work on many different projects of different size and type at the same time. This can't be helped at the moment though we're already working within the company to try and focus on max. 2 projects and customers per sprint and team. As of now, we can't always deliver "working software" at the end of a sprint which means we don't have a sprint goal either. My team however delivers done work which is of high quality.
+1 to Daniel's input and to Ian's questions.
Stephanie, you may be fresh (as you call yourself), but judging from the way you describe the case, it sounds like you are excellent "material" for a Scrum Master. I liked your introduction and background info, the way you described the teams and yourself, your concerns on your current status quo and not filling your work schedule to the maximum. You seem to already embrace a servant-leader philosophy.
Some suggestions that may help you, Stephanie:
- try to understand the product(s) as much as possible
- volunteer to help with anything - including testing, to the extent possible
- look into processes - workflows - best practices - you name it; look into optimization/improvements by removing unnecessary steps/waste
- map out the dependencies (if any) and suggest better ways to work (either by removing or reducing blocks/impact)
- study and discover more - there are lots of resources you can use
- think of ways to bring the team closer together
Some suggestions that may help you
Thanks Eugene for the suggestions. Especially the idea to help out with pretty much anything. That will give me a better idea of what my team is doing day-to-day. I'll give that a try.
Also I'm happy you liked my way of presenting the situation and of cause even more so that you think I have potential as a scrum master. Helps loads to hear something like that.
For personal coaching most of the team members don't trust me enough or they end up not being honest with me
Hey Stephanie,
while reading your post, my mind got stuck at this point. I could imaging how this point hurts and thats probably one of the reasons why you go for develop yourself. btw thats always a good idea.
First of all, maybe it could help to be more indirectly. Especially in german culture (if i am right) working with questions should be more helpful.
Second. From my own experience i want to share an important point which helped myself a lot:
https://www.amazon.de/Überzeugt-Kompetenz-zeigen-Menschen-gewinnen/dp/B…
Im pretty sure we own the same native language, so there is a german example ^_^ and it isnt an aviliate-link ;)
for all others:
it is a book about the difference between the real and the perceived competence. And why it is important to work on the perceived competence, even if the real one is on high level.
best regards
Nico
I'm going to write an answer that's very much about me, but that's because I recognize some things that I have been through myself. Apologies if it comes across as a stream of consciousness, but hopefully there's something from my experiences that you will find helpful.
As a former software developer, who later became a Scrum Master / Developer, I also became a full-time Scrum Master for the first time in July. I currently work with 18 developers spread across 2 (previously 3) Scrum Teams.
I was the first Scrum Master at my company for quite some time. As such, I have the freedom and responsibility to dictate how I go about my work. I have some expectations from my manager, but otherwise I've largely had to shape what I do, and decide what I should and shouldn't get involved in.
I was already strongly immersed in the idea that the outcome is more important than maximizing the hours worked, but I wasn't used to the quiet time that filled my day. I came into the job expecting (based on what I'd heard about 3 teams being the most that a Scrum Master should work with) that if anything I would be overloaded, and not have enough free time.
As a Scrum Master / Developer, whenever I wasn't needed as a Scrum Master, there was always something in the Sprint Backlog to develop, or in the Product Backlog to refine.
Not having the steady stream of work waiting for me was an adjustment. For my whole career, I've enjoyed being busy. Here, I had to understand that keeping myself busy, at certain times, would be harmful, rather than beneficial for the team; especially if my way of being busy involves distracting other people.
In the quiet times, I like to keep my eyes and ears open. I also like to look at data, to see if I can spot patterns. Additionally I find it a good opportunity to read, and sharpen my skills, or increase my knowledge. I notice that sometimes if I'm obviously not busy, people are more likely to ask for my help, so I try to keep that in mind.
I still use my technical skills to make it easier to obtain metrics that would increase transparency or help me coach the teams, such as extracting data from Jira's APIs to find the number of bugs reported, or the accuracy of the teams' Sprint forecasts. This keeps me busy, but I try to remember that focusing too much on such tasks can be addictive, and get in the way of being a good Scrum Master. I am always questioning whether I should spend more time listening to things being said, or observing how team mates interact with each other.
I also volunteer for ad-hoc distractions, such as when someone asks for help moving office furniture, changing a lightbulb, or setting up the hardware in a meeting room; because the chances are if it's not me, the distraction would go to one of the developers or product owners.
Some weeks I'm busier than others. I try to have 1:1 conversations with all of the Scrum Team members, over a 4 week cycle. I try to fit several into just a few days, so that I can spot patterns in what is being said. This can result in less free time overall, tiredness from putting a lot of mental energy into listening, and responding with powerful questions, as well as having a list of specific and non-specific follow-up tasks.
This cycle has made me more aware of my energy levels, and I'm taking steps to ensure I work at a sustainable pace. I've noticed times when I am better at listening or sensing what is going on, and that usually comes when I'm well rested. I see it as unfair on my colleagues if they need my help, and I'm less useful because I've tried to do too much.
Thanks Simon for that insight. I too am not used to not having something active to do but realizing that this is part of the job helps me greatly. Your point being busy makes one seem less available to the team is an interesting one that I will keep an eye on. I just fear that the team might think I don't have enough to do or that I don't to anything at all since they are not used to using me for coaching or any other kind of matter really other than moderation in scrum meetings. I still have to work on that.
The 1:1 conversations I too want to try in December though I'm not sure yet how often I should do them. I think once a month is a good cycle though for a start I would like to aim for at least once every 2 weeks. Since I only have one team I can cycle through them faster.
Energy level is a good cue! I should pay more attention to that myself. Maybe that will help me find the right balance of being busy without being too busy.
Thanks a lot for your contribution!