Scrum Master
The Scrum Master is one of the roles of the scrum frameworks. Other frameworks may refer to this role as Agile Coach. The other roles defined in the Scrum framework are the product owner and developers.
The main responsibility of the scrum master is to help the team follow the process. He is part of the scrum team and acts as a servant leader. Unlike a project manager in a waterfall approach, the Agile coach is not responsible for planning. The product owner and the team are the ones who do the planning work. He also does not manage the team, nor he is responsible for the product quality. Those responsibilities are also from the team. So, what is his role? He is responsible for assure that the team follows the process, and is also, a facilitator to remove obstacles to the team.
These responsibilities translate into:
- Facilitate the daily scrum
- Helps the team to keep the burndown chart update
- Organize the sprint planning, sprint reviews, and sprint retrospectives sessions
- Protect the team from interruptions during the sprint
- Remove obstacles that can harm the team
- Promote the collaboration between the team and the product owner
The required dedication to the project by the Agile Coach
Some projects need an agile coach 100% dedicated. On the other hand, in other projects, he can also be a team member and accumulate functions.
In the beginning, his works tend to be full-time. However, after a few sprints, the process tends to be systematized. In that way, his work as a scrum master will fall and he can help more actively to the sprint goal.
Once it’s crucial that the team fully trust the scrum master, the ideal would be that the team could select its own scrum master. However, most of the time is the organization management that chooses the scrum master. Moreover, to obtain the necessary trust, he should not have a hierarchical responsibility inside the organization over the other team members. Otherwise, the open communication and project decisions necessary inside the project and between the team members could be harmed.