3 Tips To Further Develop Your ScrumMaster - Mike Cohn

3 Tips To Further Develop Your ScrumMaster - Mike Cohn

I was chatting with my colleague the other day. He told me that even more than the first day of school, he’s always loved the feeling of the first day at a new job.
Why? Because everything is new and everyone you meet has yet to form an opinion about you. You have a clean slate and the possibilities seem endless.
But what about when it’s not a new team for you and/or you are not a new Scrum Master? How do you know if you are being the kind of Scrum Master your team needs at this point in their agile journey?
I have some tips for the not-so-new Scrum Master that I wanted to share with you.
Tip 1: Re-Check Boundaries
When the team first started, maybe you worked within the organization to help uncover team boundaries for self-organization. Things like

• Does the team have authority to add its own technical work into a sprint?
• What happens if they find they need a skillset not found on their team?
• Are they going to be able to make their own estimates on their items?

But have you checked on those boundaries lately? Are they the same? Is there more the team could be doing? Now that the basics are up and running, could you explore ways to improve flow or decrease dependencies between teams?
Inspecting boundaries isn’t something you need to do every day, but it’s good to check in once and a while to ensure you aren’t missing key improvement opportunities.
The Role of Leaders on Self-Organizing Teams
Tip 2: Be Accountable
You’re probably tracking a bunch of metrics with the team: velocity, the time between idea and delivery, weekly bug count, and so on.
But how are you doing in your efforts to support the team? Are you proactively seeking out opportunities for improvement? Are you being honest and fair in your dealings with the team? When you tell a team member you’ll do something, do you follow through? How quickly? Are you keeping them updated on your progress?
You help keep the team accountable for their commitments, so hold yourself to the same (or even a higher) standard.
Become the Scrum Master Your Team Needs
Tip 3: Know When To Break the Rules
I say to teams all the time, start by using Scrum by the book. Then, as you grow comfortable with an agile way of working, look for opportunities to incorporate new approaches that might not be in the Scrum rulebook (or might even go against a Scrum “rule”).
As Scrum Masters, we should know the rules of Scrum better than anyone else. There are only a few rules, and they exist for good reasons. Rules, though, are made to be broken.
One example of this is timeboxes. Each event has a timebox, and 99% of the time we should stick to them. On occasion, though, common sense might tell you that it’s not crucial to strictly keep that timebox.
Knowing where to bend the rules without breaking Scrum can be one of your most important skills to develop as a Scrum Master.
Start Scrum by the Book. Don’t Finish There.
Even if you’ve been with your team for a while now, you have a chance each day to make a new impression on them. I know that purposefully looking for ways to improve as a Scrum Master will help you succeed as a Scrum Master, and succeed with agile,

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