SCRUM MASTER

PRACTITIONER’S GUIDE
Written by Eugene Lai

www.cprime.com | 877.753.2760 | learn@cprime.com

SUMMARY

The role of the “Scrum Master” is one of the most sought-after job roles in
recent years due to the growing popularity of Scrum, the most popular and
widely-adopted Agile framework in the market today. However, this role
is also one of the most challenging positions to fully understand for many
reasons.

The objective of this whitepaper is to demystify some of the misconceptions

about the Scrum Master role and provide a few insights for both current and
aspiring Scrum Masters to help them make a meaningful impact to their
teams and organizations.

In this paper, I have assembled a collection of tips based on personal

experience building and cultivating Scrum teams. I will offer a few
recommendations on how to serve as an effective Scrum Master, as well
as a few techniques for handling unique situations that are seldom found
in formal publications. The suggestions mentioned are intended to invoke
further exploration and thought prior to applying to specific organizational
situations.
 WHAT IS A “SCRUM MASTER”?

The Scrum Master is a highly misunderstood role within the Scrum framework due to many factors.
Organizations often relegate this role to an administrative role – someone who sets up meetings,
coordinates facilities and/or sets up the teleconference, takes notes and updates the Agile Management
Tool for the team, etc. While these tasks are important and need to be done, the Scrum Master’s job
goes far beyond these activities. The reason that many Scrum Masters focus exorbitant amount of
time on trivial activities is that some organizations do not fully understand the Scrum Framework
itself, which leads to confusion to the core responsibilities of the Scrum Master.

As described in the Scrum Guide, the Scrum Master is expected to embody the core values of Scrum:
Courage, Commitment, Respect, Openness, and Focus. How a Scrum Master exhibits and promotes
these values is typically left up to the individual to decide. Below are a few recommendations for active
and aspiring Scrum Masters.

COURAGE

FOCUS COMMITMENT

SCRUM

OPENNESS RESPECT

Courage– A Scrum Master demonstrates courage by challenging the status quo, by continuously
reinforcing the Scrum values through consistent practices. This may seem like common sense, but
this is a long journey that requires persistence and a strong will.

Commitment– A Scrum Master commits to serving the team, to the Scrum framework, to helping the
team to achieve success in any way possible.

Respect– A Scrum Master respects ideas and opinions shared by the team, while encouraging healthy
conflict that fosters innovation.

Openness– A Scrum Master is always open to feedback and constructive criticism, regardless of the
situation.
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Focus– A Scrum Master is focused on teaching the team to operate as a unit, to always look for a better
solution to issues related to people, process, or tools.

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 KEY SKILLS FOR A HIGH-PERFORMING SCRUM MASTER

One of the interesting characteristics of a Scrum Master is the variety of skills required to be effective
in this role. Some organizations feel that it is imperative for a Scrum Master to be a subject matter
expert, while others focus more on soft skills such as the ability to negotiate and facilitate difficult
conversations. In most cases, the ability to navigate organizational boundaries and culture is one of
the most critical skills for a Scrum Master. This talent can be difficult to quantify and articulate when it
comes to cultivating a Scrum Master.

Aptitude and attitude are important traits for a successful Scrum Master; he/she should have a passion
for continuous improvement and relentless pursuit of knowledge. This person should be inherently
curious and have an internal motivation to help others succeed. While such characteristics are often
difficult to train or teach, with proper mentorship, individuals with the right attitude can be developed
into highly-effective Scrum Masters.

The term “Servant Leader” is typically used to describe the Scrum Master, but this term can be difficult
to understand. Is the Scrum Master a servant or a leader? The answer is: Both! The Scrum Master is
expected to serve the team, and at the same time, influence the team towards an effective way of
collaborating, while supporting the team’s freedom to make decisions and solve problems creatively.
Such dynamic skills are very difficult to acquire, and are often learned through hands-on experience.
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 SCRUM MASTER ANTI-PATTERNS - WHAT TRAPS SHOULD A SCRUM MASTER
WATCH OUT FOR?

On the journey of discovery and continuous learning, many Scrum Masters will likely
encounter challenging situations that will put their core values of Scrum to the test. Below
are a few pitfalls that all Scrum Masters should be aware of and actively watch out for. How
a Scrum Master handles each specific situation will likely vary depending on organizational
dynamics and project context. However, in most instances, these situations often challenge
the Scrum Master to consider various options that could have lasting impact to the team.

1. Temptation to tailor Scrum practices. More than likely, most Scrum Masters will encounter
this situation at some point in their career. Many maturing Scrum teams have a tendency
to pick and choose specific Scrum practices to apply and to ignore. It is the Scrum
Master’s responsibility to champion the Scrum values and apply the practices within the
spirit of Scrum. Excessive tailoring often originates from the lack of understanding for
the purpose of that specific event (e.g. eliminating Sprint Retrospectives). In this type of
situation, the Scrum Master is expected to educate and mentor the team on the purpose of
each collaboration event. The framework is designed strategically for each event to work
together, so eliminating any component will significantly degrade the overall effectiveness
of the framework. In lieu of customizing Scrum, the Scrum Master can help the team
inspect and adapt by conducting a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to diagnose problem areas,
then determine the proper solution to address the issue. More often than not, the team will
discover that the solution may be very different than what they originally anticipated.

2. Complacence with status quo. Scrum Masters are often faced with the difficult decisions on
a daily basis, one of which is to challenge the norm or leave things the way they are. This type
of situation could be related to engineering practices or how the team is currentlypracticing
Agile/Scrum. Team complacency can be considered a risk that should be addressed in some
way, especially for mature teams. Often times, a Scrum Master will need to manage the “speed
of change” carefully, and help the team develop a mindset of continuous improvement. This
will require consistent adherence to the core Scrum values. For new teams, it is typically
easier to motivate the team to introduce incremental change on the path to building a
high-performing team. For teams that have been successfully delivering solutions using
Scrum, the Scrum Master will need to be more creative and come up with innovative ideasto
continue to inspire change. One way to accomplish this is by applying different types of
Retrospectives to continue challenging the team.

3. Motivating the team using risky techniques. One of the changes that has occurred within the
Agile community in recent years is the de-emphasis on metrics such as burn down charts.
While this may seem counterintuitive, the root cause for this change is the belief that the
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value of such data has been overshadowed by negative impacts caused by misuse of the
data. Metrics such as team velocity, work item estimates, and burn downs are often used by
organizational leadership to motivate higher productivity and output through competition.
This is a risky approach to team motivation. As the Scrum Master, the preferred approach
is to instill a mindset of continuous improvement, which provides a more positive view and
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 a more sustainable change in mentality. How do we teach something as fundamental as
professional growth and learning? That is a challenging subject which can be addressed
in a variety of ways. The key takeaway is that a Scrum Master is expected to motivate the
team through core values instead of by fear of negative outcomes; he/she should also have
enough courage to challenge those who may be unintentionally creating a negative dynamic
using team-level metrics.

4. Holding one individual accountable instead of the team. With the advent of various Agile
Management Tools such as JIRA, CA Agile Central, Team Foundation Server, etc., many
Scrum teams run the risk of unconsciously evolving into a task-centric team in which
individuals take ownership of specific work items. While this practice may seem harmless
on the surface, this dynamic could have subtle effects on teamwork. When specific team
members own individual work items, team collaboration may degrade. As the Scrum Guide
suggests, the entire team should own the entire Sprint Backlog (i.e. collective ownership),
not a single individual; this mindset fosters shared ownership and accountability, which
encourages collaboration and maximizes team effectiveness as a whole. So, what can a
Scrum Master do to motivate teamwork despite the tool having single owners to work items?
One possible solution is to reinforce the concept of shared ownership by calling out that
the person “assigned” to the User Story is meant to represent the point-of-contact for that
Story, and that the entire team has the opportunity to help each other meet the acceptance
criteria for that Story however they can. Another technique is to take a different approach
during Daily Scrums to focus on the work items instead of individual team members. In
practice, instead of encouraging each team member to share their progress individually at
the Daily Scrum, use the Sprint Board as the focal point to discuss what has been completed
for each work item (by all relevant team members) and what can be done to make progress
towards completion as a team. This approach may build a different mentality of shared
accountability.

WHAT ARE SOME TRICKY QUESTIONS OR SITUATIONS THAT A

SCRUM MASTER SHOULD EXPECT?
Regardless of the size and nature of the project, Scrum Masters will likely encounter many difficult
situations and be expected to answer challenging questions throughout the project. Below is a
collection of potential scenarios that a Scrum Master may need to address. Note that responses to the
situations are offered as possible solutions to consider; these may vary depending on specific project
constraints and organizational context.

1. “Can we skip the Sprint Retrospective? The other developers feel that it’s a waste of
time.”
Suggested action: One way to address this is to examine the reason for the team not getting
value out of the Retrospective before eliminating it from the standard practice. Applying
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root-cause analysis techniques such as Fishbone/Ishikawa diagram or “5-Whys” can often

reveal the real problems at hand. In this case, it is likely that the Retrospectives are just not
facilitated effectively, which leads to lack of engagement and perceived value.

2. “We only have 3 days left in this Sprint, and we won’t be able to finish all the work we
55 planned. Can we extend the Sprint by a few more days so we can wrap this up?”
 Suggested action: With only 3 days left in the Sprint, any work that is not expected to be
completed within the Sprint should be evaluated. The team may consider several options:
(1) Put the work item back into the Product Backlog and select a smaller work item that is
more likely to be completed, (2) Abandon this specific work item (i.e. put the work item back
into the Product Backlog) and “swarm” on remaining/in progress work items to maximize
completion of work, (3) Refine (or split) the work item into smaller, simpler parts and focus
on the part that is more likely to be completed within the current Sprint.

3. “The other Scrum team (in XYZ department) is doing 50 points per Sprint, and we are
only doing 30. Should we try to finish 50 points next Sprint so we don’t look bad?”
Suggested action: This is a complex situation that may require multiple actions. The more
important aspect that should be addressed is the fundamental understanding of Story
Points; why do teams feel that they are in a competitive environment? Is management
directly or indirectly using team output as a measure for success? This type of behavior
can create a negative dynamic that should be addressed to negate potentially damaged
morale or induce unintended behaviors (such “gaming” the system by altering point values
intentionally).

4. “Can we do the Sprint Demo every two Sprints instead of every Sprint? We have not been
able to show any completed work in the last few Sprints so there’s no point in having this
demo meeting every Sprint.”
Suggested action: Sprint Review (a.k.a. Demo) is an important Scrum event that is designed
to maximize transparency and provides the opportunity for inspection and adaptation. If
the team is consistently unable to produce anything meaningful, there are bigger problems
that must be resolved because the team is not functioning properly. Some of the potential
causes of this may be: (1) User Stories are sized inappropriately (too large) and/or have
poorly-written acceptance criteria, (2) Team consistently overcommits to work, (3) Team
consistently over-estimates work, or (4) Excessive churn in resource capacity. There may
be additional issues that lead to a team being unable to produce results. The best way to
determine the source of the problem is through root-cause analysis.

5. “This User Story turned out to be a lot more complicated than we had expected. We
estimated it at 5 points but we know think it should have been at least a 13 or larger. We
think we still have a chance to finish this during the Sprint. But, should we update the
tool and change the estimate to 13?”
Suggested action: The purpose of estimating work using Story Points is to accomplish two
goals: (1) Discuss the problem set, the solution, and the approximate complexity, (2) Establish
a team-level velocity to forecast future work. The point values for a Story is a snapshot in
time which is based on the team’s best understanding of the problem domain at that point in
time. There is minimal value in updating the estimate after additional learning and discovery
has been done. Hence, the general recommendation is to leave the original estimate as-is
and allow natural learning to occur over time, which should eventually improve the team’s
ability to estimate more accurately in the future.
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 CLOSING THOUGHTS
The job of a Scrum Master is challenging because it is often morphed into or merged with
traditional job positions such as Project Manager or Program Manager. This is likely the result
of a combination of lack of understanding for the Scrum framework from an organizational
perspective. When organizations seek to apply Scrum in a meaningful way, they must commit
to gaining an accurate understanding of what this role means and how critical this role is to the
overall success of the adoption of Scrum and achieving the expected Return on Investment.
To ensure credibility and legitimacy to this role, Scrum Masters owe it to themselves to operate
with a high standard to help evangelize Scrum as an effective way of producing meaningful
results. This can only be achieved through focus, commitment and courage.
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77
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: EUGENE LAI
MBA, PgMP, PMP, ACP, CSP-SM, SPC, SAFe-RTE, ICP-ACC, CSaSP

Mr. Eugene Lai is a seasoned innovator in Information Technology

and process engineering with over 20 years of proven track record
delivering high-impact solutions within PMOs and Agile teams. In
previous roles as Lead Software Engineer, Chief Scrum Master,
Principal Program Manager, VP of Project Management, PMO Director,
Technical Consultant and Agile Advisor, Mr. Lai has successfully
applied process lifecycle frameworks and delivered complex
solutions to various Fortune 500 financial services companies and
U.S. Department of Defense customers across the globe. Mr. Lai
has provided consulting services to organizations such as Project
Management Institute (PMI), Scrum Alliance, and ASPE Training.

Over the past 12 years, Mr. Lai has orchestrated Program Management
and Agile Engineering initiatives by applying a variety of methodologies

and frameworks such as Traditional Waterfall/SDLC, Large Scale Scrum (LeSS), Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe),
Scrum and Kanban. Mr. Lai has architected 5 corporate PMOs and successfully executed Agile transformation
efforts for 6 different organizations.

Mr. Lai currently holds several professional certifications including: Certified Scrum Master (CSM/PSM),
Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist, Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO), Scaled Agile Program
Consultant (SPC), Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), Project Management Professional (PMP), and Program
Management Professional (PgMP).

Learn more at www.cprime.com

or call 877.753.2760