Who Is Scrummaster And

How To Become One?

By
Nanda Lankalapalli

Email : [email protected]
Website: www.poweragile.com


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Are you wondering what is this Scrum the whole world is talking
about? This article will help you understand what Scrum is and also
about an important role called ScrumMaster. The article goes on
exploring on how to build a career as ScrumMaster.

Scrum Framework
Scrum is a process framework for new product development
created by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber. The word “Scrum” is
taken from Rugby game where the team huddle is called Scrum. Since
new product development is very complex, Scrum offers an iterative
and incremental development approach. In Scrum there are 3 roles
namely, ScrumMaster, Product Owner and Development team of size
3 to 9. All three roles are empowered to do their job and have no
authority on each other. However, they work as self-organising team to
deliver a product with complimenting skills.

Scrum is an Empirical process which is used for solving complex

problems like Software Development. Since we cannot predict the
outcome upfront, the team goes iteratively and learn and improve in
each iteration. For the team to continuously learn and improve, they
keep all the artefacts transparent and frequently inspect and adapt.

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Scrum Roles
Product Owner(PO) collaborates with customers (users) of the
product being developed and understand their needs. Product Owner
creates list of customer needs in a Product Backlog and always
keeps it in the order of business value. This way PO makes sure that
latest needs of the customer are delivered by the development team.
Product Owner is also responsible for effective Product Backlog
management, helping development team to build the high value
product and perform long term planning and tracking. Product
Owner is responsible for success of the product.

Development Team is a Cross-Functional (all product

development skills like development, testing, analysis, design etc. in the
same team) and self-organising (empowered to make decisions
about how to build the product). The team is responsible for
delivering a quality product with the guidance of the Product Owner.

ScrumMaster is a Scrum process champion who teaches,

coaches, mentors Product Owner and Development team so that they
can deliver a product in Scrum process. ScrumMaster’s main
responsibility is to remove any impediments PO and Development
team have so that they can deliver high value and high quality
products.

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Product is delivered in short iterations called Sprints which

range between 1 to 4 weeks. At the end of the Sprint, a small
increment of the product is delivered to the customer. This increment
should add value to the customer and of high quality and user should
be able to use it if they decide to us it. So, product increment should
be fully developed and tested and usable addition to the product.

On the first day of the sprint, Development team and PO get

together for a meeting called Sprint Planning to decide how much
from from Product Backlog should be taken into Sprint based on
Development Team’s capacity and capability. This work is called
Sprint Backlog. Once the Sprint is planned, the Development
Team works collaboratively every day. The development team meets
at least once a day for a 15 minute synch up called Daily Scrum to
make sure that they are all on the same page. They identify any

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impediments that cause the Sprint goal to fail. ScrumMaster helps the
team and PO in resolving those impediments so that they go forward.

The goal for the team to deliver a working Product Increment

at the end of the sprint. Once the Product Increment is created, PO
invites few stakeholders to review the product and give their feedback.
The development team demonstrates what they have produced in the
Sprint in a meeting called Sprint Review. Based on the feedback,
the product will be adjusted if needed.

The Development Team and PO meet to reflect on what went

well and what could be better after the Sprint Review in a meeting
called Sprint Retrospective to identify any improvement areas they
can work on.
Product Owner and Development team meets few times every
sprint to look at the Product Backlog to make it ready for the
upcoming sprints. These activities are called Product Backlog
Refinement. Since Product Backlog should be kept evolving to allow
changes for the product, the product Backlog Refinement is an on
going process to make the elaborate the requirement just in time.

ScrumMaster helps Product Owner and Development team by

Facilitating Scrum meetings effectively, coaching them on the Scrum
Values and Process.

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ScrumMaster
Success of Scrum implementation heavily depends on
ScrumMaster role. This is not an authoritative role. ScrumMaster is
like a Servant Leader who serves the team and help them achieve
the goals. For ScrumMaster to be effective, the role should be
empowered i.e ScrumMaster should be given full authority to
implement Scrum Process. Other than understanding Scrum
Framework in depth, ScrumMaster needs to acquire few additional
skills like Facilitation, Coaching, Mentoring, Teaching to
effectively guide the Scrum Team.

How to get started?

First thing is that you want to learn what is Scrum in depth. The
best way to do this is to attend one of the ScrumMaster certification
courses like Certified Scrum Master(CSM) from ScrumAlliance. CSM
is most popular ScrumMaster certifications in the world. This class is
offered by highly qualified trainers called Certified Scrum Trainers
(CST) from Scrum Alliance. I am a leading agile consultant and offer
not only CSM but also advanced courses for ScrumMasters. You can
check our class schedule on our websites for a class in your city
https://poweragile.com/certified-scrum-master-training-calendar/.
Scrum is simple at the surface but has lot of depth if you want to
understand deeply. Choose the trainer who has lot of practical

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experience and can help you understand the concepts well. To choose
the trainer, read their LinkedIn profiles, look at the reviews and talk to
your friends. Don’t fall for the training companies who don’t have any
subject matter expertise. I see way too many ScrumMasters certified,
yet don’t have enough knowledge to get a job as ScrumMaster. Just
having a certification is not good enough. I suggest every one to focus
on gaining the knowledge and certification will follow.

How to start building the career?

You have the knowledge of Scrum now, even got certified, but
have no experience as a ScrumMaster. How do you get a job? I would
like to discuss few options on how you may consider.
Get a Mentor : It is important to get a mentor who can guide
you in building the ScrumMaster career. Choose a mentor who has
good experience as a ScrumMaster and willing to help. This mentor
could be some one in your own organisation or from a local Scrum
community. Once you found a mentor, discuss with them on your
goals and request for help by sharing his/her experiences and how to
deal with various situations. If you are PowerAgile student, you can
join several user groups run by us where you could find some mentors.
Getting the first job: This is the hard part. If your company
has ScrumMaster role, see if they offer you that role internally. This
probably is the best way to get started. If your company doesn’t run in
Scrum, look for a company that has ScrumMaster role. It would be
difficult to be hired as a new ScrumMaster with a new employer. So,

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look for a job with your core skill where they have a ScrumMaster
opportunity. For example, if you are a developer, then look for job
opportunities for developer job where they promise ScrumMaster role
eventually. Once you are in the new organisation you can slowly start
building the ScrumMaster experience. Once you have enough
ScrumMaster experience, start looking for full time ScrumMaster
jobs.
Sustain the career: To Sustain ScrumMaster career, you need
to learn advanced knowledge like Coaching and Facilitation. There
are courses like Advanced CSM and Certified Scrum
Professional (CSP-SM) which will get you started as an agile
coach. Check our calendar for an advanced course in your city
https://poweragile.com/a-csm-training-certification/. Other way to
keep learning is to be part of local agile community and contribute
and learn. If you are our student we will help through out your
journey. To know about all ScrumAlliance certifications, https://
www.scrumalliance.org/get-certified

Final Thoughts
Agile and Scrum knowledge is becoming more like a life skill i.e,
one can use this knowledge to manage their day to day work. I have
seen students and house wives in my class and could make perfect
sense of ScrumFramework. Also, the way I teach the concepts are so
simple that makes difficult concepts easy. As we all see a lot in India
that people go after certifications but not the knowledge, in the
current world one who don’t have enough knowledge will not sustain.

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So, while choosing your path, go with a trainer/coach who is

knowledgeable rather than based on just price or other factors.

How PowerAgile can Help?

PowerAgile is Hyderabad based Agile Consulting Company
owner by leading Agile Consultant in India, Nanda Lankalapalli.
Nanda is a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) and a Leadership Coach.
He has more than 25 years of product development experience and
served in various roles as Developer, Architect, ScrumMaster,
Professional and Agile Coach as well as leadership roles like Vice
President. With his extensive technical background Nanda can help
teams as well as leadership to understand agile at the same level. He

conducted more than 200 ScrumMaster workshops and certified more

than 10000 professionals. Nanda is the first trainer approved to teach
advanced courses like A-CSM and CSP-SM in India. We could help
you with agile journey in all aspects and hand hold until you have
achieved your goals.

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Nanda is regular author of several blogs on Agile/Scrum topics.

He tries to connect the concepts to real life situations. You could read
his blogs at PowerAgile website at https://poweragile.com/power-agile-
blog/. Nanda coached many of his students who have changed
themselves into better individuals. Nanda mentored several coaches
who are working as Agile coaches now.

Email : [email protected]
Website: www.poweragile.com

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