a·gen·tic a·gil·i·ty

Hiring a Professional Scrum Master

TL;DR; Hiring a Scrum Master is challenging and requires someone who can lead, coach, and support both the team and organization to improve effectiveness and adopt Scrum practices. Key requirements include strong leadership, facilitation, and communication skills, a servant leadership mindset, and relevant certifications, with technical or business domain knowledge as a plus. Focus on candidates who can foster a safe, collaborative environment and drive continuous improvement for reliable product delivery.

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One of my customers is hiring for the Scrum Master Role and asked if I had a handy-dandy Scrum Master Job Spec that they could use. I did not, but there have been a few good ones floating around in the ether so I thought that pulling one together would be a good idea anyway. Here is my best effort to use the existing job postings, and combine them with the latest version of the Scrum Guide.

![](images/Wide-screen-scrum-master-1280x720-2-2.jpg) { .post-img }
[Professional Scrum](https://nkdagility.com/resources/professional-scrum/) Master

Hiring a Professional Scrum Master

The Scrum Master is a challenging position to hire for and finding the right person is even more difficult. Ultimately the Scrum Master is accountable for the effectiveness of the Scrum Team . That means that they need to have some level of knowledge of both the relevant business domain to help the Product Owner , as well as enough technical knowledge to help the Scrum Team.

While there is no need for a Scrum Master to be technical, they do need to understand what effective looks like within the product and the technical domain within which you are creating the product. Ultimately it’s worth remembering that certification is not an indication of competence , but may be used as a simple bar to reduce the load on interviews and assert a minimum level of knowledge. At $200 for a PSM I assessment and $250 for the PSM II assessment, and with a reputation in the industry of not being totally easy, these are a no-brainer for any aspiring or experienced Scrum Master. At the time of writing there are more than 350k people with PSM I and 11k people with PSM II .

Hiring a Professional Scrum Master

A Scrum Master Job Spec

The  Scrum Master  is accountable for establishing Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. They do this by helping everyone understand Scrum theory and practice, both within the  Scrum Team  and the organization. The  Scrum Master  is accountable for the  Scrum Team ’s effectiveness. They do this by enabling the  Scrum Team  to improve its practices, within the Scrum framework. Scrum Masters  are true leaders who serve the  Scrum Team  and the larger organization.

Role Summary

This Scrum Master position is a leadership role that is accountable for the effectiveness of the Scrum Team by:

Should work to build a trusting and safe environment where problems can be raised without fear of blame, retribution, or being judged, with an emphasis of healing and problem-solving.

Role Requirements

The successful candidate must have the following attributes:

In addition, the successful candidate will have some or all of the following attributes:

Role Sucess

If the Scrum Master is successful then the Scrum Team will have the following characteristics:

I would love to get your feedback and discussion on this job specification so that we can make it better!

Sources:

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