Have you ever tried to make sure that your team is completely aware of what the Scrum Master’s role is about. Are you looking to educate your team members through playing a game on that? You are in the right place, once I played a game with my team to go over Scrum Master duties. There was good discussion going on and most of all we had fun playing the game.
What was the game you are asking? The game was me reading out statements and asking Team members to shout if they are True or False. I am calling it the “Scrum Master is Responsible for” game. After asking each question, if there was disagreement between team members regarding the answer, I would let them to discuss and challenge each other and at the end it was my duty to jump in and make sure everyone understood the topic correctly and the right answer for it.
Game: “Scrum Master is Responsible for v1.0”
These are the questions to consider for “Scrum Master is Responsible for?”:
- Scrum Master is responsible for successful delivery at the end of each Sprint.
- Team is responsible
- Scrum Master is responsible for preparing for the demo and presenting it.
- Ideal demo is the one that stakeholders can do it themselves.
- Scrum Master is responsible for removing impediments.
- Scrum Master is responsible for facilitating the scrum events. The events include but not limited to the followings:
- Daily Stand Up
- Sprint Planning
- Sprint Review (Demo)
- Backlog Grooming
- Retrospectives
- Scrum Master is responsible to assign tasks, user stories, spikes etc.
- Scrum Master never assign tasks; it is the Team’s responsibility.
- Scrum Master is responsible for maintaining the documentations.
- It is Team’s responsibility on maintaining any documentation they are providing.
- Scrum Master is responsible to maintain the Product Backlog.
- It is Product Owners’ responsibility to do so.
- Scrum Master is responsible to come up with Definition of Done, Definition of Ready and team agreements and update them.
- It is Team’s responsibility to come up with those.
- Scrum Master is responsible to coach Scrum team to follow Scrum / Agile best practices.
For your reference, I am going to leave the Scrum Master’s duties in detail from Scrum Guide.
The Scrum Master
The Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring Scrum is understood and enacted. Scrum Masters do this by ensuring that the Scrum Team adheres to Scrum theory, practices, and rules.
The Scrum Master is a servant-leader for the Scrum Team. The Scrum Master helps those outside the Scrum Team understand which of their interactions with the Scrum Team are helpful and which aren’t. The Scrum Master helps everyone change these interactions to maximize the value created by the Scrum Team.
Scrum Master Service to the Product Owner
The Scrum Master serves the Product Owner in several ways, including:
- Finding techniques for effective Product Backlog management;
- Helping the Scrum Team understand the need for clear and concise Product Backlog items;
- Understanding product planning in an empirical environment;
- Ensuring the Product Owner knows how to arrange the Product Backlog to maximize value;
- Understanding and practising agility; and,
- Facilitating Scrum events as requested or needed.
Scrum Master Service to the Development Team
The Scrum Master serves the Development Team in several ways, including:
- Coaching the Development Team in self-organization and cross-functionality;
- Helping the Development Team to create high-value products;
- Removing impediments to the Development Team’s progress;
- Facilitating Scrum events as requested or needed; and,
- Coaching the Development Team in organizational environments in which Scrum is not yet fully adopted and understood.
Scrum Master Service to the Organization
The Scrum Master serves the organization in several ways, including:
- Leading and coaching the organization in its Scrum adoption;
- Planning Scrum implementations within the organization;
- Helping employees and stakeholders understand and enact Scrum and empirical product development;
- Causing change that increases the productivity of the Scrum Team; and,
- Working with other Scrum Masters to increase the effectiveness of the application of Scrum in the organization.