When I’m asked about the difference between a newbie Scrum Master and a professional Scrum Master, I can’t help but feel that neither of those labels truly captures the essence of what it means to be a Scrum Master. In my experience, the term “newbie” implies a lack of competence, but that’s simply not the case. When you step into the role of a Scrum Master, you’ve already demonstrated a level of effectiveness within your team. You’re not just a novice; you’re taking on an important accountability that requires skill and understanding.
The Myth of the Newbie Scrum Master
Let’s unpack this idea a bit. The notion of a “newbie Scrum Master” suggests that there’s a significant gap between those who are just starting out and those who are seasoned professionals. However, I believe that once you accept the responsibilities of a Scrum Master, you are, in fact, an experienced professional. You’ve shown that you can help your team become more effective, and that’s what truly matters.
- Accountability: When you take on the Scrum Master role, you’re not merely playing a part; you’re stepping into a position of accountability. This means you’re responsible for guiding your team and ensuring they can deliver value effectively.
- Respect: Your team respects you for stepping up. They know that you’re there to help them focus on delivering valuable products rather than getting bogged down in the minutiae of the process.
The Professional Scrum Master
Now, let’s talk about the term “professional Scrum Master.” This is often used by organisations like Scrum.org to convey a certain level of expertise. However, if we look closely at the Scrum Guide, it doesn’t differentiate between a “professional” and a “newbie.” It simply refers to the role of Scrum Master.
What I believe Scrum.org is trying to convey is that we should approach the Scrum Master role with a professional mindset. This isn’t just about going through the motions; it’s about providing real value to your organisation and your team. Here are some key points to consider:
- Value Creation: A professional Scrum Master actively seeks to create value. This means understanding the needs of your team and organisation and working to meet those needs effectively.
- Accountability Distribution: While it’s true that everyone on the team can take on Scrum Master responsibilities, having one person designated for this role helps streamline processes and ensures that tasks are managed efficiently.
The Role of a Scrum Master
It’s crucial to understand what being a Scrum Master is not. It’s not about micromanaging your team or pushing them to take on more work than they can handle. I’ve seen too many instances where someone in a Scrum Master role behaves more like a project manager, dictating tasks and deadlines. This approach is counterproductive and doesn’t align with the principles of Scrum.
Instead, a professional Scrum Master focuses on:
- Facilitating Effectiveness: Your job is to help your team become more effective. This means identifying obstacles and working to remove them, rather than adding to the workload.
- Continuous Improvement: Always look for ways to improve processes and practices within your team. This is where the real value lies.
Conclusion
In summary, whether you’re just starting out or have been in the role for years, the key is to embrace the responsibilities of a Scrum Master with a professional mindset. It’s not about titles or labels; it’s about the impact you have on your team and organisation.
If you found this discussion helpful, I encourage you to engage with me further. I always welcome comments and questions, and if you’d like to chat about Agile, Scrum, or DevOps, feel free to book a coffee with me through Naked Agility. Let’s continue the conversation and explore how we can all become more effective in our roles.
Oh, I kind of like that question. What’s the difference between a newbie Scrum Master and a professional Scrum Master? I feel like neither of those things exist, right? I think that’s where I would go initially, and I would say that there’s no such thing as a newbie Scrum Master. You become a Scrum Master because you’ve demonstrated that competence in your team to be able to help them be more effective, right? So you’re not really a newbie; you’re just picking up that accountability of the Scrum Master. You are an experienced, effective professional at that point when you pick up the accountability of the Scrum Master.
So I feel like that newbie is a bit of a thing, and really there’s no such thing as a professional Scrum Master. That’s just a Scrum Master, right? Just as there’s no such thing as a newbie Scrum Master, a professional Scrum Master is Scrum.org’s brand of how they explain things. But if you look at the Scrum Guide, it doesn’t talk about professional Scrum Master or true Scrum Master or certified Scrum Master, right? It doesn’t talk about any of those things because there is just the Scrum Master.
And I think if we were to look at professional Scrum Master and see, well, what is it? It’s trying to create that idea around we need to approach the role of a Scrum Master from a professional’s perspective. It’s not just, we’re not just playing the Scrum Master; we’re not just decking around as the Scrum Master. It’s a professional role that provides value to the organisation. It provides value to the team. It’s picking up accountabilities that perhaps if everybody on the team picked them up, because maybe everybody on your team is capable of picking up the accountabilities of the Scrum Master, the team would have a hard time getting anything done if everybody’s picking that up.
So that’s one person who the team respects, says, “Well, I’ll pick up some of these things and go sort them out so that you can all focus on delivering valuable product and being as effective as you can at delivering valuable product.” And here’s some things that I’m going to pick up and help with and help enable you as a team to do the stuff that we need to do, right? And I think that’s that idea that Scrum.org is trying to sell of the professional Scrum Master.
Of professional Scrum is that we’re doing the thing rather than going, “Well, you know, we, you know, I’m going to be the Scrum Master,” but in actual fact, it’s Sprint planning. I’m going to, you know, tell the team, “Right, you’re not taking on enough work this Sprint. I’m sure you can fit some more work in there.” Oh, Bob, have you, you don’t have enough stuff assigned to you? I think some more stuff, you can take on some more stuff this Sprint, right? And that idea of, well, that’s not Scrum Master, right? That’s, that’s, well, I guess I might say that’s a project manager. But even if you were a project manager and you were doing that, you kind of suck at project management too.
So that’s just somebody who sucks. That’s not a professional. When you’re a professional, you figure out what are the things I can do to help my team be more effective, right? Help the group of people that I’m working with or that I’m managing, right? It doesn’t matter what terminology you use. How do you help that group be more effective? Stop doing things that are less effective or try and change things in your organisation that are less effective and increase their effectiveness. That’s really all we’re talking about from a professional Scrum Master perspective is do the thing. Don’t just mess about the edges of the thing; actually do it.
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