[MUSIC] Welcome to Expert Viewpoints,
should you become a Scrum Master? In this video, we will hear Agile and
Scrum experts discuss who should pursue the job of Scrum Master, some of
the challenges Scrum Masters encounter, and how they overcame these challenges. The job of a Scrum Master is ideally
suited for people who have a genuine interest and passion for
Agile principles in the Scrum framework. Those who have strong communication
skills, have a servant leadership mindset, possess strong facilitation and
coaching skills, love solving problems, and of course, are a continuous learner. Some of the common challenges a Scrum
Master faces are an organization or team members who are resistant to change
or just lack the Agile experience or understanding. Sometimes there's different personalities
on a Scrum team that can present challenges. Scaling Agile can present challenges and
sometimes you can lack empowerment or support from management and stakeholders. To overcome these challenges,
you could conduct workshops or training sessions to share
the benefits of Agile and Scrum. You can be a role model for your team,
you can have effective facilitation techniques to encourage open
communication among team members, and you can engage stakeholders early and
often. And of course, seek support from fellow
Scrum Masters in your organization. Someone who has worked in
a software development environment. Someone who has a passion for
working with teams that deliver value. Someone who has project
management experience, someone who's just overall
passionate about agility. If this is you, then I definitely advise that you can
pursue a career as a Scrum Master. In my opinion, the greatest challenge
is knowing where to start, so what courses to take,
how to go about them. And finally, when you figure that out and
you have a job, it's finding a team that will
accept you as a new Scrum Master. Especially if this team is used to having
a very seasoned Scrum Master as part of them, that can be a huge challenge. The way I overcame these challenges is
first of all by understanding that I didn't know the process,
I didn't know what's going on and putting in all the work. So I took so many courses on Udemy, I watched YouTube videos,
I read so many books, a lot. I took a lot of time to invest in this
because I knew that this was something that I was passionate about. And when I joined my first team, first
of all, I made them to understand that I'm here to support them and not to
control them, that is very important. Then I made sure to do my one on ones,
make them to understand that I don't know the process, but I'm here to
understand the process, here to learn, so that together we can all succeed and
be valuable to our customer. To me this is simple, anyone who loves
to coach with a team and stakeholders. If you're into the idea of
building successful teams, then being a Srum Master is
a perfect opportunity to do that. You have lots of chances to
help a team who's struggling, help a team who's frustrated,
help a team who is about to give up, who may not even get
along with each other. If you're into fixing
those type of issues, then you may be very successful as a Scrum
Master, especially if you're good at it. If you're into solving complex problems, Scrum Master is a great
opportunity to do that. If you like helping support
discouraged team members, you'll do lots of that as a Scrum Master. You'll encounter all kinds of challenges,
a little bit of everything. You may find some unmotivated employees, someone who thinks that
their way is the best, a team of people who
are experiencing groupthink. You will see all kinds of different
motives from your team members. You'll find that teams don't
even want to work together. And an example would be a team who cannot
agree on how to complete their tasks. Maybe it's testing or development or
some technical detail. You'll encounter those things and
they may or may not look at you for
guidance, but nevertheless, it is your responsibility to
figure out those problems. It's simple,
be true to the Scrum process, it works. Now, you may need to adapt to
the organizational culture and things that feel natural to the team,
but stay true to the framework, be true to the tools and
techniques that you know that work. Coaching, supporting,
delegating, directing, you will need to do all
those different things. Be sensitive to what the team is telling
you, this is a really key point. They may not even verbally
tell you directly, but you may hear it in their communication,
their tone of voice, their interactions with each other,
how they're participating in the meetings, how they're working with each other, the
rate of the tasks that they're completing, the way they're doing their work. You have to keep an ear to the ground and be sensitive to all those
different types of indicators. A good Scrum Master is an enabler,
supports and coaches the team, so isn't going to get much recognition. So if you need the spotlight,
this probably isn't for you. If you like helping people,
are a good listener, and can handle uncertainty, you'll do fine. Another skill you'll need is to be
able to influence without authority. It's much easier to be able to say
do it because I told you to, but that won't work here. So my favorite way to influence
is to ask a lot of questions, tease out why decisions were made and
maybe what other options they considered. This is very useful in coaching. [MUSIC]