In some organizations, managers or developers take the value of a Scrum Master into question. Because the role keeper does not create value that is directly visible.

In my PhD thesis I describe the Scrum Master to be a leadership enabler who empowers developers to take on the lead. The Scrum Master supports the team to work in an agile way, which implies cross-functionality, psychological safety and team learning. The Scrum Master does not tell developers what to do, but helps the developers to figure out themselves what they want to do. The Scrum Master does not aim at a direct outcome but focuses on fostering team dynamics that lead to high quality and effective product development.

Mediates between Different Perspectives

To be able to work cross-functionally as a team, the developers have to learn about each others competences and skills. The Scrum Master helps the developers understand who knows what and in which way team members can support each other. Moreover, the Scrum Master mediates between different opinions and perspectives and fosters shared decision-making. This happens every day, since the team meets every day briefly to inform each other about the current work in progress.

Fosters Team Learning

Team learning refers to shared learning as a team and to building products in an incremental way. The core value is to fail early and fast, in order to avoid creating heavy concepts that fail a test after several months of development. Moreover, it includes to communicate what quality means and how to ensure it. The Scrum Master motivates the team to take time for learning and uses appropriate methods and communication to learn from each other.

Creates a Safe Environment

Psychological safety is important to speak openly about personal opinions and ideas. The Scrum Master creates a safe environment where team members feel welcomed to voice their opinion. This fosters healthy relationships and inventing good products. Often the Scrum Master uses the Retrospective for fostering psychological safety in the team. The Retrospective is a regular team meeting within which the team talks about what went well in the last weeks but also what should be improved the up-coming weeks. Together colleagues discuss about how they as a team should improve.

Shows Patience

Learning to work in an agile manner takes time. Especially teams in traditional development companies that aim to develop products in a more agile way, will need time to change their habits. The Scrum Master cannot expect the team to develop agile team features over night. The team needs time to grow, to get to know each other and to learn the agile way of working step by step.

Makes the Developers Shine

A good Scrum Master works in the background and supports the developers in the best possible way, so that they can focus on their work. Without the developers, an organisation would be worth nothing. A project would not produce any product. If the Scrum Master creates a working environment in which developers can work at their best, the result will be minimum viable products that delight customers. The dedicated role keeper makes the developers shine.

Sum Up

A Scrum Master is a leadership enabler who empowers developers to lead themselves and, thereby, create great products! The role keeper serves as a mediator between different perspectives, helps the team to continuously learn and adapt to its context and creates a safe environment where developers talk openly with each other. Creating an agile environment takes time and therefore, a Scrum Master needs a lot of patience. Last but not least, the Scrum Master serves in the background and makes the developers shiny :-)