A Scrum Master facilitates a Scrum. Now, let us dive a little deeper and understand what this means.
- Firstly, as the name suggests, he is the Master of the Scrum. That means, he knows everything about the scrum process and how it should be implemented in a project.
- He ensures that the team follows the agreed Scrum process.
- He coaches and educates the team as well as the stakeholders about scrum process and scrum principles.
- He facilitates scrum session at the beginning of a scrum.
- He monitors the scrum process and suggests any improvements, if needed.
- He helps the Product Owner maintain the Product Backlog so that the work is clearly understood by the team and there is progress in the right direction.
- He avoids or removes any impediments that may occur during the progress of a scrum.
- He ensure the sprint is followed well and the tasks are completed as per the estimates.
- In case of the estimates going wrong, he may get involved in the estimation process and identify the problem that is causing the estimates to slip sharply and can help the team in generating better estimates.
- Ensure that all scrum events (Daily Scrum Meeting, Grooming Sessions etc.) are happening, though, he may or may not not be a part of these events.
Following a scrum can be a tricky thing especially in a volatile environment where requirements change very often and there are a lot of production issues. As a Scrum Master, he needs to ensure that everyone involved in the project in well-trained on Scrum and knows how to work around such fragile situations without letting the sprint break. He should be able to suggest ways to improve things in the project so as to make it as smooth as possible in the future.
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