I hope this video was helpful. 📖 An in-depth practical guide for the Scrum Master job - Scrum Master Startup Guide: shop.scrummastered.com/product/scrum-master-starter-kit/ 📩 Subscribe to my newsletter to get updates on new stuff and special offers: scrummastered.com/free-downloads/
This video is on my top five all-time most helpful videos in addressing knowledge-vs-praxis gaps that never come up in training programs or certifications. I cannot thank you enough.
you are right. and seem like a great scrum master. but there's one thing you didn't mention. "using the software"... i've had only one really great scrum master in my career. he wasn't a coder. he had a degree in film history or something. but the thing that made him great was in genuine interest in the product we were building. he would have the latest version of what were building on his machine (he would even go through the build process himself). he would try and use the software to understand exactly what we just built and what work we have coming up. this really helped him understand how to help the team plan sprints and stories. he knew where the complex parts were. he know where the bugs were. he knew how the software was supposed to work. he may have not known how to code, but had genuine interest in what we were building. maybe this seems like an obvious thing scrum masters should do, idk. but i haven't had another scrum master like that since. ive had 3 or 4 different ones since then. all of them never had time to use/test the software we were building. they viewed themselves as "leaders", but knew nothing about what they were leading. there's always been a disconnect between the devs and the scrum master. my current scrum master complains that we get "too deep in the technical weeds" during out meetings. but we are just having normal conversations devs have during meetings.. it creates a tense environment where the devs need to be herded like children to keep them on track by the "adult" in the room... its extremely frustrating. thinking back on that one great scrum master i had, he involved himself in those conversations the best he could. he asked to be shown where the issue was. he asked general questions about the software. he wanted to understand the work he was helping to manage. and if conversations got far off the rails, we trusted him when he would guide us in another direction.
@PoppySeed84 great points! I'll be actually talking a bit more about that on a podcast called Agile Within soon as we discuss what technical skills SMs need. My opinion on this topic evolved over the years and I think more tech skills and knowledge are needed.
Thank you for your video. The background music is an additional cognitive load for those of us on the spectrum. I would recommend against it. A little bit of music goes a long way, and is workable for us when people are not speaking or if they are singing. But when people are talking, background sound effects are very challenging and cause us to click off.
We moved away from scrum masters without a dev background due to bad experiences. It was like scrum painted by numbers rather than done with understanding, and they couldn't help the team adapt the technical problems to scrum or determine if the technical problems suited scrum. Scrum just isn't that complicated that it takes a full time position.
That's quite unfortunate. I don't think that the problem is the technical background - you just didn't find good Scrum Masters, ever. Even now it seems that your SMs are not as good if you believe that Scrum is not complicated and it's about engineering practices.
@@ScrumMastered given you werent there, in the situation, i am not sure what criteria you are using to judge or comment? this is the kind of thinking that cost the company a lot of money - one size fits all and opinions not related to the actual place. its just not agile. the complex implementations of scrum were, in our case,, imho, an unreasonable and unneccesary cost to the business. opinions from thin air are not cost effective, scrum is supposed to be emperical.
@@ScrumMastered Can't possibly see how you know this when you had nothing to do with the project? Since when is being able to understand the needs of the developers a bad thing? Like running a kitchen doesn't require an understanding of cooking? Honestly these opinions plucked out from thin air are a real problem in the industry.
My opinion is based on knowing what Scrum Master role is. Since we are talking metaphors here... Do you expect a therapist to have experienced exactly the same life as you to be able to help you? Or do you expect them to be versed in human psychology? I have seen enough projects in tech and non-tech environments to know what the usual implementation challenges are. And the number one problem is not understanding the Scrum framework (and hence the role of the Scrum Master). I have worked with a team of cloud developers. I know nothing about the technology. I don't even completely understand the whole concept. So how come they are my number one success story? And no, it's not based on my personal opinion. It's based on the feedback I received... from them! I didn't need to know how to cook to be able to fix the kitchen appliances. (It's a silly metaphor, but it actually works)
@@ScrumMastered a psychologist wouldnt make such judgements on someone elses life from such a distance. they would do an analysis and examination. saying oh it wasnt a good scrum master, doesnt say anything really.
What do you mean? Where did you try to schedule? What was the problem? You can schedule a coaching session via calendly here: scrummastered.com/scrum-master-mentorship-program/
Dear @ScrumMastered, I recently had a Scrum Master interview where I was asked about what kind of metrics I am using for measuring the quality of the code. At that moment I was totally frozen, because I didn't learn about it on any of the Scrum Master courses, not even for PSM2 certification courses, and I didn't know that a Scrum Master needs to know about Code Quality Metrics till now. I am very curious what do you think about this question? Was it a fair question or not? Thank you in advance!
@chillintravels, some people doing the hiring don't know what the role of a SM is, so they ask irrelevant questions like this one. I had one interview where I was asked to organize a technical product backlog... as a Scrum Master. What?... In your interview, I would probably ask them what they expect of a Scrum Master in their team. Do they expect you to help developers write and verify code? Maybe they are looking for a developer who will do some admin work. In this case, it's probably not a good fit anyway.
Dear@@ScrumMastered Thank you for your kind answer. I was thinking about the same irrelevancy of that question during the interview. The sad thing that a senior Agile Coach asked me about it. I am keep watching your super videos about SM, they are helping me lot to develop myself. Cheers! :)
Truth be told, our Agile team currently have a scrum master who is really bad. A big problem is that she is not technical, and even when she presented herself as non-technical, it still became a problem with the team. The problem is that in the absence of technical understanding, the void becomes filled with political nonsense, contrived power and authority, driven in large part by fear of technical threats, leading to the scrum bum (aka master) to become overly adverserial.
@elderdragon5657, that's no fun. I truly believe that you don't have to be technical but you still must take your time to learn the technical terms. Ok, I can't write code, but I understand what developers in my teams are doing and I speak the same language. That's a pre-requisite for the job, I think. It's all industry dependent. If you are a Scrum Master in a non-tech environment, say in a logistics team in a food industry, you need to understand the processes of this particular team, which will mean you probably need to learn some logistics. If you are a Scrum Master in a game development team, you need to understand all aspects of work involved in it. Ok, you won't be able to do the job itself, but you need to know what it looks like and what challenges team members are facing. You need to know the terminology.
My problem is that I am someone who learns best by doing it myself. If I am being explained a concept or read about it, it’s hard for me to understand it deeply and remember it forever. The result us that I sometimes feel incompetent in my sm role
![How to Become a Scrum Master [ 4 Steps to Take ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ASM6LEsw-dM/mqdefault.jpg)
![How to Become a Scrum Master [ 4 Steps to Take ]](/img/tr.png)
I hope this video was helpful.
📖 An in-depth practical guide for the Scrum Master job - Scrum Master Startup Guide:
shop.scrummastered.com/product/scrum-master-starter-kit/
📩 Subscribe to my newsletter to get updates on new stuff and special offers:
scrummastered.com/free-downloads/
A very BIG help as usual!!! Thanks Daria
This self explanatory shows that you truly know your stuff.
This video is on my top five all-time most helpful videos in addressing knowledge-vs-praxis gaps that never come up in training programs or certifications. I cannot thank you enough.
Thank you! 🙏
You rock Daria! Thank you for helping to understand what a productive and successful scrum master is. Tomaz
This is one of the best scrum videos I have watched so far.
Very informative 🙏🙏🙏
Thank you so much
Glad it was helpful!
very helpfull me coming from automation career and pivoting to IT stuff!
you are right. and seem like a great scrum master. but there's one thing you didn't mention. "using the software"... i've had only one really great scrum master in my career. he wasn't a coder. he had a degree in film history or something. but the thing that made him great was in genuine interest in the product we were building. he would have the latest version of what were building on his machine (he would even go through the build process himself). he would try and use the software to understand exactly what we just built and what work we have coming up. this really helped him understand how to help the team plan sprints and stories. he knew where the complex parts were. he know where the bugs were. he knew how the software was supposed to work. he may have not known how to code, but had genuine interest in what we were building. maybe this seems like an obvious thing scrum masters should do, idk. but i haven't had another scrum master like that since. ive had 3 or 4 different ones since then. all of them never had time to use/test the software we were building. they viewed themselves as "leaders", but knew nothing about what they were leading. there's always been a disconnect between the devs and the scrum master. my current scrum master complains that we get "too deep in the technical weeds" during out meetings. but we are just having normal conversations devs have during meetings.. it creates a tense environment where the devs need to be herded like children to keep them on track by the "adult" in the room... its extremely frustrating.
thinking back on that one great scrum master i had, he involved himself in those conversations the best he could. he asked to be shown where the issue was. he asked general questions about the software. he wanted to understand the work he was helping to manage. and if conversations got far off the rails, we trusted him when he would guide us in another direction.
@PoppySeed84 great points! I'll be actually talking a bit more about that on a podcast called Agile Within soon as we discuss what technical skills SMs need. My opinion on this topic evolved over the years and I think more tech skills and knowledge are needed.
Thank you for your video. The background music is an additional cognitive load for those of us on the spectrum. I would recommend against it. A little bit of music goes a long way, and is workable for us when people are not speaking or if they are singing. But when people are talking, background sound effects are very challenging and cause us to click off.
@scofah there's also a written blog post in my blog that follows the video transcript so that it's easier to follow my speech.
Thank you for this video! really informative!! Best Scrum Chanel :)
We moved away from scrum masters without a dev background due to bad experiences. It was like scrum painted by numbers rather than done with understanding, and they couldn't help the team adapt the technical problems to scrum or determine if the technical problems suited scrum. Scrum just isn't that complicated that it takes a full time position.
That's quite unfortunate. I don't think that the problem is the technical background - you just didn't find good Scrum Masters, ever. Even now it seems that your SMs are not as good if you believe that Scrum is not complicated and it's about engineering practices.
@@ScrumMastered given you werent there, in the situation, i am not sure what criteria you are using to judge or comment? this is the kind of thinking that cost the company a lot of money - one size fits all and opinions not related to the actual place. its just not agile. the complex implementations of scrum were, in our case,, imho, an unreasonable and unneccesary cost to the business.
opinions from thin air are not cost effective, scrum is supposed to be emperical.
@@ScrumMastered Can't possibly see how you know this when you had nothing to do with the project? Since when is being able to understand the needs of the developers a bad thing? Like running a kitchen doesn't require an understanding of cooking? Honestly these opinions plucked out from thin air are a real problem in the industry.
My opinion is based on knowing what Scrum Master role is.
Since we are talking metaphors here...
Do you expect a therapist to have experienced exactly the same life as you to be able to help you? Or do you expect them to be versed in human psychology?
I have seen enough projects in tech and non-tech environments to know what the usual implementation challenges are. And the number one problem is not understanding the Scrum framework (and hence the role of the Scrum Master).
I have worked with a team of cloud developers. I know nothing about the technology. I don't even completely understand the whole concept.
So how come they are my number one success story?
And no, it's not based on my personal opinion. It's based on the feedback I received... from them!
I didn't need to know how to cook to be able to fix the kitchen appliances.
(It's a silly metaphor, but it actually works)
@@ScrumMastered a psychologist wouldnt make such judgements on someone elses life from such a distance. they would do an analysis and examination. saying oh it wasnt a good scrum master, doesnt say anything really.
I have a question, is scrum only related to Agile ?
I tried to schedule to see you so many times but for some reason it never worked out for me. So I was wandering what next?
What do you mean? Where did you try to schedule? What was the problem?
You can schedule a coaching session via calendly here: scrummastered.com/scrum-master-mentorship-program/
Very good video! Very to the point!👏
Dear @ScrumMastered, I recently had a Scrum Master interview where I was asked about what kind of metrics I am using for measuring the quality of the code. At that moment I was totally frozen, because I didn't learn about it on any of the Scrum Master courses, not even for PSM2 certification courses, and I didn't know that a Scrum Master needs to know about Code Quality Metrics till now. I am very curious what do you think about this question? Was it a fair question or not? Thank you in advance!
@chillintravels, some people doing the hiring don't know what the role of a SM is, so they ask irrelevant questions like this one. I had one interview where I was asked to organize a technical product backlog... as a Scrum Master. What?...
In your interview, I would probably ask them what they expect of a Scrum Master in their team. Do they expect you to help developers write and verify code? Maybe they are looking for a developer who will do some admin work. In this case, it's probably not a good fit anyway.
Dear@@ScrumMastered Thank you for your kind answer. I was thinking about the same irrelevancy of that question during the interview. The sad thing that a senior Agile Coach asked me about it. I am keep watching your super videos about SM, they are helping me lot to develop myself. Cheers! :)
Thank you very much. Super useful.
Glad to hear that!
This is helpful.
Would you recommend a PSM-I certification over a CSM?
I am a bit biased towards PSM since I'm a trainer with Scrum.org. But both certifications are well recognized and respected
Truth be told, our Agile team currently have a scrum master who is really bad. A big problem is that she is not technical, and even when she presented herself as non-technical, it still became a problem with the team. The problem is that in the absence of technical understanding, the void becomes filled with political nonsense, contrived power and authority, driven in large part by fear of technical threats, leading to the scrum bum (aka master) to become overly adverserial.
@elderdragon5657, that's no fun. I truly believe that you don't have to be technical but you still must take your time to learn the technical terms. Ok, I can't write code, but I understand what developers in my teams are doing and I speak the same language. That's a pre-requisite for the job, I think.
It's all industry dependent. If you are a Scrum Master in a non-tech environment, say in a logistics team in a food industry, you need to understand the processes of this particular team, which will mean you probably need to learn some logistics. If you are a Scrum Master in a game development team, you need to understand all aspects of work involved in it. Ok, you won't be able to do the job itself, but you need to know what it looks like and what challenges team members are facing. You need to know the terminology.
Very informative !
Are you on Udemy?
No, but I have an online course Fundamentals of Agile. You can find it on my website at ScrumMastered.com
Well summarised and this video should be used for businesses who fear change and who lack good practice.
I think it all comes down to specific people who don't want to change the way they do things.
Good stuff. another technical debt: not complying with the code coverage until closer to the release dates.
Ah, yes. Good one!
My problem is that I am someone who learns best by doing it myself. If I am being explained a concept or read about it, it’s hard for me to understand it deeply and remember it forever. The result us that I sometimes feel incompetent in my sm role