The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Scrum Master

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Scrum Master

I was facilitating a PSM 2 Training where we were discussing how to be an effective Scrum Master. I suddenly realized we can link a lot of the principles from the book  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

1. Proactive

Take responsibility for the success of the Scrum implementation. Don't sit and wait in a reactive mode, waiting for problems to happen. Coach your Product Owner up-front before you start the product to set the basic expectations. Educate and coach your stakeholders on how Scrum works and how it is different from traditional project management. Also, explain how we measure things differently and how they can expect to be involved differently. Coach the Development Team on Scrum Values and the importance of the definition of Done. Work with the stakeholders, be it Practice, PMO, Human Resources, Finance or Senior Leaders to remove organizational impediments, be it budget, measurement, or team structure. We are not expecting Scrum Master to solve problems, but Scrum Masters can highlight those issues and their impact on Business Results.

2. Being with the end in mind

Visualize your end-state, the Developlop Team is able to work together and deliver at least one increment per sprint or even multiple increments per sprint per day with the help of Continous Integration / Continous Delivery / DevOps. If the Product Owner has a clear Product Vision, work with stakeholders, base the discussion on Value, and validate whether the user likes the Product and Features through quantitative analysis, as well as quantitative-like Design Thinking and User-Centric Design. Agile Leaders empower the Scrum Team and provide feedback to the Product either during Sprint Review or work with the Product Owner on Product Vision and Strategy. Scrum Masters point North, understand that the Scrum team and the organization are not there yet, and coach the whole team to move toward the dream state.

3. Put first things first

Understand that we should tackle important but not urgent tasks rather than important but not urgent tasks. This helps the Scrum Master to decide which impediments to focus on and also helps the Product Owner to focus on Value rather than something that is just an urgent request from stakeholders. Also, this principle helps the Development Team to focus on Sprint Goals rather than other ad-hoc tasks that are very often urgent but not important.

4. Think win-win

If the Product Owner wants to do some features, but the Development Team estimates that they would take very long, maybe both parties can re-negotiate, brainstorm other solutions that would require less effort from the Development Team yet at the same time achieve what the Product Owner and stakeholder wants.  The same thing can happen to Product Owner and stakeholder negotiations, as well. The Scrum Master can also work with Managers and Leaders and ask them to help with organizational impediments yet at the same time achieve what those managers/leaders want to achieve, either team-wise or business-wise.

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood

Again, when the Development Team negotiates with the Product Owner, first seek to understand what the Product Owner wants to achieve from a business perspective, and the Development Team can figure out the Solution. The Product Owner can first seek to understand why it is taking that much effort from the Development Team so both can come to a compromise or come up with a new creative solution.  The same applies when the Scrum Master seeks help from leaders. Instead of telling what the Scrum Master wants, ask the leaders what their Vision and Strategy are and see if there are any organizational impediments blocking the way.

6. Synergize

So we are hoping 1+1 = 3, be it through different members working together, some creative collaboration between the Product Owner, or different perspectives/points of view from stakeholders.

7. Sharpen the saw

The Scrum Master continues to learn new skills for self-improvement and thinks of ways to help the team grow during Sprint Retrospectives or during the Sprint, be it through Technical Excellence/ Software Engineering / UX / UI or Product Backlog Management / Design Thinking / Lean Startup / Lean UX or communication skills and presentation skills. A core part of Scrum Master’s duty is learning, the Scrum Master’s own learning as well as that of the whole Scrum Team / Organization. 

These are the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Scrum Masters. With these principles, Scrum Masters can take it to the next level.