Unpacking the Differences
A newbie vs professional Scrum Master could be considered a misconception.
Allow me to explain why.
In the Agile world, and particularly in Scrum, answering an intriguing question like the title of this article can be tricky. Still, as I’m often asked, - “What’s the difference between a newbie Scrum Master and a professional Scrum Master?” I’ll tackle it and let’s look at the differences together. 🎯
Is There Such a Thing as a ‘Newbie’ or a ‘Professional’ Scrum Master?
Before we dive into the possibility of a misconception, I’d like to take a moment to challenge these terms.
In my opinion, the concept of a ’newbie’ or ‘professional’ Scrum Master doesn’t quite exist. 🤔
Surprised? Let me explain.
You don’t become a Scrum Master as a newbie. Instead, you step into the role because you’ve showcased competence within your team. The moment you take accountability as a Scrum Master, you’re an experienced, effective professional.
When you take on the role of a Scrum Master, you’re no longer a novice. 🏅
You’ve shown your ability to help them become more effective. That’s not the work of a newbie; that’s the work of a professional! 🌟
Conversely, there’s no such thing as a ‘professional’ Scrum Master.
The Scrum Guide, which I regard as our Scrum ‘bible’, doesn’t mention such terms. There is only the Scrum Master. The term ‘Professional Scrum Master’ is more of a branding choice by Scrum.org to emphasise the professionalism required in this role.
What Does it Mean to be a ‘Professional’ Scrum Master?
So, what does ‘professional’ mean here? 🏆
It’s all about emphasising that being a Scrum Master is not playtime. It’s a professional role that adds value to both the team and the organisation.
The term ‘Professional Scrum Master’ aims to underscore the importance of approaching the Scrum Master role professionally. This role is not a game. It’s a serious commitment that provides value to the team and the organisation.
As a Scrum Master, you’re accountable for tasks that, if everyone on the team were to take on, would hinder their ability to get things done.
Therefore, a person whom the team respects picks up these responsibilities, ensuring everyone else can focus on delivering valuable products. 👩💻
Wearing the Hat of a Scrum Master Professionally
A professional Scrum Master is not just a title. 🚀
Being a Scrum Master means being professional about it - not just playing the part, but taking action.
If, during Sprint Planning, you’re telling your team they haven’t taken on enough work or assigning tasks to individuals, you’re not being a professional Scrum Master.
Instead, a true Scrum Master, in the spirit of professionalism and Agile methodology, would instead focus on enhancing the team’s effectiveness.
The Scrum Master works towards eliminating ineffective practices and fostering those that boost the team’s productivity.
The Bottom Line of a Scrum Master: Just Do It!
To wrap things up, what we’re talking about from a professional Scrum Master perspective is: ‘just do it’.
Don’t just fiddle about at the edges or get caught up in tinkering on the fringes either, but truly embrace the role. - adopt the role in its entirety. 💼
Are you intrigued by the role of Scrum Master and keen to learn more?
Consider joining one of our Agile and Scrum courses to boost your knowledge and skills.
Let’s improve together and build Agile organisations! 🔥🔥🔥
Until next time, stay Agile! 🚀
So the question is what is the difference between a newbie scrum master and a seasoned experienced scrum master?
I think it’s their approach. So when you’re new at something and you have lots of choices on the way you approach a problem, you’re going to pick a way and try it. You’re going to practice, and the result of that gives you a little bit more experience, right? Some XP points to start levelling up and figuring out what are the things that you know work better within a context.
Because I guess it depends on the context of the team that you’re working with, the context of the organisation, and if you shift those, you might have to relearn a lot of stuff again. But the seasoned scrum master already has a bunch of that knowledge and experience, and quite often those experienced scrum masters go off and write books and blog posts and do videos that the newbie scrum masters are going to watch to try and get a leg up.
But there’s a difference between knowledge, which is what you’re gaining that way, and the experience of how to use it. Right? Because those experienced scrum masters have seen this is the practice that I kind of like, that’s my default, right? So I’m going to default to this. But you know for this type of company, that’s probably not the best way to do it. Maybe I need to go to try one of these other practices because I know already before I walk in the door that this one’s not going to work or it’s not going to work yet.
I know that I can get a group of people in a company to move towards this thing by doing these little steps along the way, so I’m going to try each of those steps.
Yeah, so I think the fundamental difference is iterative and incremental, right? Actually living the scrum dream rather than just talking about it. I.E. it’s not a bullion value proposition. Using scrum in an organisation, it’s not a you’re doing scrum, you’re not. Right? It’s a journey to get from what people aren’t doing to where you want them to get to.
And usually those things are not, they’re doing a daily scrum. Right? Who gives a crap about a daily scrum? Right? Do they continuously and transparently understand as a team where they are on a daily basis? Right? That’s what the value proposition we want over here. How are you going to get the team towards that so that they understand what’s going on on a daily basis, their tactical daily situation?
What about their long-term strategic? Right? Do they understand going forward into the future over the next five or six iterations that they’re working on or five or six things that they’re doing? Do they understand what direction they’re going? Right? Do they understand the overall strategic direction of the product?
Right? If they don’t understand those things, we need to bring in mechanisms to help them get there. And I think a newbie scrum master will go straight for the end game. Oh, we need a product goal. Right? Well, let’s deploy a product goal now that’s fixed. Right? And they wonder why it doesn’t actually change the way the team’s working. It doesn’t actually change the value proposition that the organisation’s getting.
But the battle-hardened seasoned scrum master will know that if you go straight for this, it will become mechanical. Nobody will get it. They’ll just do it because they’ve been told to do it, not because they understand the value of that thing. Therefore, they want to do it and want it to work well. Right? Everybody in the team has to want to do it and want it to work well in order for this thing to be successful.
And this is true for whole companies as well, not just for a team. Right? Micro and macro.
So the seasoned experienced scrum master is going to start perhaps with teaching the scrum team some of the basic concepts back to empiricism and transparency and lean. Right? Are we actually able to create those things? What does it mean if we don’t have those things?
Let’s look at the data for what we’re actually delivering and see where the problems are and lead the people to their own conclusions, which hopefully positively impact those things and start moving us towards that goal.
And that’s where you start getting into more coaching rather than consulting. Right? Because you’re creating an environment within which the person or group of people are able to understand and come up with their own answers for the problems that we’re trying to solve in the situation we’re trying to get to.
Whereas consulting is a little bit more the something we need to fix, something we need to flip, switch, we need to flip. We’ve got to get that changed quickly, and then perhaps the coaching kicks in later because they don’t know how to do those things.
So I think that that’s the difference between a newbie scrum master slash agile coach, because for me, they’re the same thing, and the battle-hardened scrum master at agile coach.
Thanks for watching the video. If you enjoyed it, please like, follow, and subscribe. I always reply to comments, and if you want to have a chat about this or anything else agile, scrum, or devops, then please book a coffee with me through Naked Agility.
