6 Key Skills for Scrum Masters

Scrum alliance refers to the role of a scrum master as a facilitator for the team and product owner. It works on all aspects, be it managing the team or checking the progress of product development.

The role of scrum master is to identify the scrum framework and to be responsible for establishing high performing agile teams. A scrum master proves to be a great asset to a company when he coaches individual and entire teams and prepares an inventive high performing scrum team.

It serves as a link between planners and doers and the main responsibility is to guarantee that everyone stays on the same page. A skilled scrum master understands the exact tools and skills required in accomplishing a project and shares with the team to achieve objectives and to remove potential roadblocks or diversions.

A skilled scrum master will always and forever continue to focus on developing a team regardless of technical developments. Even a scrum master can help a team achieve results which are far better than subpar scrum teams.

Essential key skill sets for scrum masters:

To become a successful scrum master and make the transition smooth the following skills are required and added to the scrum master role:

• Creative mind

Scrum master must be innovative while providing team with impediments, designing sprint retrospectives, path breaking ideas and so on. The scrum master uses the scrum team in exploring uncharted territory and testing new product and market ideas. Scrum iterative and incremental methodology optimises feedback and minimises risk. Scrum team intense doster encourages innovative thinking.

• Fast conflict resolution

Scrum teams are made up of people who have varied ideas, personalities and work styles and which can lead to conflicts. So in order to avoid conflict and smooth functioning if a team member disagrees it’s the responsibility of the scrum master to find a solution and leverage the smooth development process.

• Encourage collaboration and motivation

One of the essential competences of a scrum master is to regulate team members’ activity on a daily basis. A scrum master is the pool of knowledge and thus it is very important to share knowledge and experience with team members as and when required. Knowledge is imparted through seminars, conferences and meetings. To further stimulate collaboration, a scrum master focuses on the release of planning sessions, stand-up meetings, iteration planning sessions and iteration demo sessions.

• Great communication skills

The ability to convince and communicate smoothly is one of the important talents of a scrum master. How well a person communicates his ideas and plans and how effectively it is delivered plays a very crucial role. Good communication skills makes it easier to communicate with consumers, teams and audiences. It is vital to share ideas, and listen to what others have to say. Keep an eye on various audiences from time to time and being a good listener is one of the scrum master’s talents.

• Rapid decision making

Decision making ability plays a very important role in the life of a scrum master. The empirical method of decision making helps in quick judgements. Transparency encourages quick decision making and scrum master ensures artefacts and ideas are conveyed properly. The scrum master must focus on teaching the product owner and team on how to make quick decisions and avoid analysis paralysis to deliver a working product increment every sprint.

• Problem solving attitude

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um master keeps team on track and helps in achieving and assisting objectives. He identifies distractions and prevents the team from doing high quality work. What can be the source of distraction? Unwanted meetings, procedural intricacy, the work atmosphere and many more. It’s the duty of the scrum master to keep the team free from all distractions and roadblocks and obstruct progress towards objectives.

Conclusion

Scrum masters have a unique role to play and serve as a liaison between development teams and product owners and ensures the highest possible quality of work. Despite having a long list of responsibilities they are not project managers and on other hand are responsible for ensuring everyone in the team follows protocol. If you are looking for an expert scrum master contact our development experts and get a professional incharge of your product development team who ensures the task and development is done smoothly.