Vsevolod Syrov

Agile Lead and Coach

How to explain the

Scrum master role

to a 10-​years old
and any manager in your company
 First of all you need to understand two things

1. Both types of systems - physical and organisational tend from more sustainable
state to less sustainable. This phenomenon calls increasing Entropy. In general Entropy
it’s a measure of a system disorder. The bigger entropy the bigger disorder.

Less More
Entropy Entropy

2. We need to make efforts to decrease Entropy. In the Physical world it’s an amount of
physical work. In the Management world it’s an amount of meetings and mind work.

"#@$!"
 This Entropy influences Product teams too

Entropy may be caused by many factors inside and outside a Product team.
Every time, when one of this factors happens, the team's workflow becomes
blocked until someone won't move away the cause of the factor.

Some of the AN URGENT Dependences on

Outside Factors task from one of another team with a
stakeholders huge backlog

Product Team Product

STOP STOP
Workflow

STOP STOP

Some of the A Team member

PO has a lack of
Inside factors doesn't want to work
competence
in Agile way
 To reduce the influence of Entropy you need energy

You can find this energy inside your product team. Some factors can be reduced by
Product Owner, and some others - by the rest of the team. These efforts give you
Energy to resist Entropy. Your workflow will be protected by the shield of this energy

Product Team Product

Energy

Workflow

Energy
 It will work until the energy of your team is enough

But soon you'll understand, that entropy can be very insidious

EnTrolltropy
I can't remove the
I'm a PO, I have I'm a developer, i
dependences on
too many don't want to talk
another team
meetings, i with stakeholders
I don't care about the have no energy
common result, I I don't want to talk with the
want to work alone developers anymore
because of their rudeness

Break off an
Energy Energy Shield
Workflow

Energy
 So, what can we do with such a situation?

We need to call hire a super hero

Organisation and other teams Stakeholders

I can help you with your Is this feature valuable

problem and u'll take our for the product goal,
task in the first priority buddy?!

I have solved your 4 major

No, you can't just put it into the
problems before lunch.
sprint backlog in a middle of the
You call it miracle, I call it
sprint. It doesn't work that way
Tuesday

Where's the backlog order, The Scrum master Who wants to work on the
Lebovsky? or the change agent weekend?! No one?! Great, now
The Backlog order, moth%$!%. we'll go and tell the same to
Do you understand it?! our PO

Now, we put all of your

if you want some help, you
meetings away and you'll
should do two things:
do some real important
1. Ask for it
things
2. Have courage to accept it

Product Owner The developers

 Scrum master will protect your workflow from Entropy

He'll help everyone in the product team understand how to fight with Entropy by their
own and have enough power for it on everyday basis.

Product Team

Product

Workflow
 Did you find out something new and have fun?

Please, tell me about it in the comments below

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(c) Vsevolod Syrov 2023