Scrum Master

A scrum master helps oversee the scrum and development team. They are knowledgeable in Agile methodology and scrum and able to educate others. They also act as a buffer between the scrum team and product owner and maintain a safe working environment for the team by helping with conflict resolution. Responsible for developing milestone plans and coordinating with the development and QA teams for providing work estimates, delivering functional high quality software.

Responsibilities for Scrum Master

• Lead the scrum team in using Agile methodology and scrum practices
• Helping the product owner and development team to achieve customer satisfaction
• Lead the scrum and development teams in self-organization
• Remove impediments and coach the scrum team on removing impediments
• Help the scrum and development teams to identify and fill in blanks in the Agile framework
• Resolve conflicts and issues that occur
• Help the scrum team achieve higher levels of scrum maturity
• Support the product owner and provide education where needed

Qualifications for Scrum Master

• Prior experience on a scrum team
• Ability to analyze and think quickly and to resolve conflict
• Knowledgeable in techniques to fill in gaps in the scrum
• Ability to determine what is scrum and what is not
• Experience with successful Agile techniques
• Ability to work with and lead a team
• Strong communication, interpersonal and mentoring skills
• Ability to adapt to a changing environment
• Self-motivation and ability to stay focused in the middle of distraction
• Scrum master is responsible to facilitating daily scrum, sprint planning, sprint demo and retrospective meetings.
• Possesses conflict resolution, does conversation by focusing on scrum values of openness, honesty and respect.
• Should be a friendly communicative person, because when team is moving fast in Agile, communication is the effective force which holds the team together.
• Needs to forecast the numbers of deliverables possible in an iteration, which is based on evidence and reliable source.
• Needs to be expert in estimation and planning. He knows how to create useful, reliable and practical plans for software development projects.
• Should be a good coach in Agile practices. S/he can coach individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
• Help team or individual to clarify goals and actions to achieve them.
• Ability to shield his team from outside distractions and interferences.
• Ability to ensure the correct use of scrum process.
• Ability to track and remove impediments.
• Scrum master is a servant first, who serves his team members before considering about himself
• Knowledge of agile methodology and frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, XP, etc.
• Good skills to coach team how to follow agile scrum, which really works.
• Understand the basic fundamentals of iterative and incremental development.
• Strong knowledge of Scrum theory, rules and practices.
• Knowledge of other Agile approaches, like: Kanban, Crystal, FDD, XP, etc.
• Knowledge about other methodologies other than Agile-Scrum, so that he can explain other methodologies to motivate his team.
• Basic knowledge of software development processes and procedures to understand his team needs.
• He should have knowledge about Agile techniques like: User Stories, Continuous Integration, ATDD, TDD, Continuous Testing, Pairing, Automated Testing, Agile Games.
• Ability to take and understand his commitment to deliver the product on time.
• Know about the value of metrics and incremental delivery.
• Knowledge about tasks, backlog tracking, burndown metrics, velocity, user stories etc.
• Familiar with common development practices, Service oriented environments, and Agile practices.