Musings of a new SCRUM master.
- 2 minsBecause of a dislike of authority I shy away from leadership positions, including “master” of anything. But we needed a SCRUM master and the question was phrased not as “will you be SCRUM master”, but instead as “we need help and we think you can help”) so here I am at the end of my first week as a SCRUM master.
I was afraid of taking a leadership/middle management type position, but it turns out being a SCRUM master is at its core more of a servant leadership position. Stress on the “servant” part of that: I protect the team from taking on more than they can handle, work to remove impediments to work getting finished, and ask developers and PMs “how can I help?” when tickets get stuck. I don’t tell them how they should do their work.
Before I started the new sub-role, I knew that I would have to develop better communication and people skills. The silly thing though is I didn’t realize the acute importance of empathetical and analytical listening. I respect and admire people who listen closely, respond thoughtfully and carefully, and then turn the interaction into positive change the most. So in my new sub-role, I try to mimic their thoughtfulness. There are no generic SCRUM master questions: Instead, I listen closely, give myself a few moments to really think, and then follow up with questions and responses that clear up ambiguity, and/or lead to productive team discussions.
Which brings me to my last realization: After my first few team discussions, I became more aware that my position as SCRUM master, and therefore a team “leader”, gave my opinions more weight in the eyes of team members, regardless of whether or not my opinion had to do with SCRUM or with how we should approach a client’s request when building out a feature. In the readings I’ve done so far, my understanding is that SCRUM master should not give their opinions on anything but how SCRUM is used, but because I’m still primarily a developer, the SCRUM master sub-role gets a bit ambiguous. I have to be extremely sensitive to the way my opinions could affect the team into making decisions that should be made by everyone together.
Samantha Louise Causey
Junior Rails dev @ Annkissam. BA in Computer Science from Smith College, 2017.