Agile methodologies are popular among IT professionals. Scrum is a framework to implement agile practices in software development and other related projects. The three roles in Scrum are Scrum Master, product owner, and the team members. Scrum master skill is a set of characteristics such as observant, knowledgeable, flexibility, persistence, lean thinking, complex problem solver, creativity, focus, and many more.
Who is a Scrum Master?
A Scrum Master is the person who champions a project and meets the expectations of the client. Also, he is responsible to build a team of highly innovative members. To define the Scrum Master key skills is somewhat difficult because he performs the role of management as well as the team leader. The major role of the Scrum Master is not telling his team members what they should do but to support and motivate them.
The Professional Scrum Master (PSM) certification can help you demonstrate your skills as a Successful Scrum Master. There are 3 levels of PSM certification; get a complete preparation guide for PSM I, PSM II, and PSM III here only!
Top Skills of a Successful Scrum Master
Scrum Master makes the team self-serving and autonomous. A successful Scrum Master is expected to motivate the team members and increase their potential. For this, Scrum Master requires some skills that he should develop in himself. These are the skills that will help him in the career development. To become a successful Scrum Master and make a transition to the Scrum Master roles effectively, one will need below-mentioned Scrum Master Skills:
1. Remove Barriers and Keep the Team on Track
The Scrum Master focuses on keeping the team members on track and helps them to reach their goal. He is responsible to find out the distractions that block the team to deliver quality work. These distractions can be unwanted meetings, unwanted procedural complexity, work environment or any other challenge. He is responsible to keep his team away from every kind of distractions and barriers that could interfere their way of achieving goals.
2. Share Experiences and Encourages Collaboration
A required Scrum Master skill is to observe the activities of his team members on daily basis. Also, he shares his experience with his team members. He shares his experience via seminars, conferences, and meetings. Also, Scrum Master encourages collaboration through the release of planning sessions, stand-up meetings, iteration planning sessions, and iteration demo sessions.
3. Introducing Engineering Practices
Scrum Master qualities include reducing time and efforts in the project development by using automated builds, simple designs, multi-level testing, automated development, and pair programming. He should also be capable to introduce best practices and procedures that could help in the early completion of the project.
4. Communication and Good Listening Power
One of the major scrum master key skills is to have good communication in order to discuss ideas and plan with the team. Good communication also provides a better way to deliver messages to customers, teams, and audience. As sharing ideas are important, listening to the other’s views is also important. Sometimes, it is also significant to observe the different audiences. So, one of the valuable Scrum Master skill is to be a good listener.
5. Acting as a Coach for Team Development
A successful Scrum Master understands the different phases that his team may undergo while working as a team. Also, he understands the importance of the team composition. He coaches the team members via building organic and self-organizing teams, tracking the project, implementing simple methodology rules, and by creating project vision.
6. Flexibility and Persistence
The Scrum Master must be flexible to adopt the changes. To become Agile, this is an important scrum master skill. While adapting the Agile Culture, the team members can face the problems. The scrum master should help the team members to adopt the changes. Just as flexibility, persistence is also a must-have Scrum Master skill. To organize the meetings for the team members and make sure that all of them attend the meetings, persistence is required. So, maintaining persistence can help the team to achieve its goals.
7. Partnership with the Product Owner
Scrum project comprises of three roles – Product Owner, Scrum Team and Scrum Master. The scrum master builds a partnership with the Product Owner. The task of Product Owner is to push the team while the task of the Scrum Master is to protect his team. Altogether Product Owner and Scrum Master are valuable for the team, build a perfect relation with the team and thus, provide the best results.
8. Wanted and Dispensable
A great Scrum Master is both wanted and dispensable. Scrum Master supports the growth of his team members in such a way that they don’t need him on the regular basis. But, due to the value distribution, his advice is required. Thus, the role of the scrum master is changed from a daily teacher to a periodical advisor.
9. Optimism and Servant Leadership
Optimism can help in improving the team member’s efficiency by increasing their morale. The scrum master can also create the environment that provides collaboration. This scrum master skill can be incorporated into one’s career as well as personal life. On the other hand, servant leadership scrum master skill is to motivate the team members to give their best. For this, mentoring, coaching, and encouraging the team members is required. Thus, the scrum master can encourage them and improve their work performance by minimizing their weaknesses.
10. Organization and Empathy
The organization is the scrum master skill that works well across the industry. Using the Scrum artifacts, he will be able to track the progress of his team and through this operation, he can use his peer’s complete potential. Scrum Master develops many skills while working throughout the working duration. So, he develops a skill to understand the emotions and the feelings of your team members. He makes a keen relation with his team and thus, listens and understands everything that his team members speak.
The conclusion is that the Scrum Master removes impediments, guides the team members in Scrum practices, and protects them against the outer interferences. Thus, the Scrum Master ensures the sustainability of a project by taking appropriate actions. In addition, Scrum Master organizes Scrum events whenever required and plans Scrum implementation. With the above-mentioned scrum master skills, scrum master improves the skills of his team members, which, in turn, increases the productivity.
So, here you have the scrum master skills to become a successful Scrum Master.
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