The Scrum Master is a facilitative servant leader who ensures that the team adheres to Scrum values and practices, including issuing invitations to daily scrums, sprint reviews, and sprint planning.

The Scrum Master does the following:

• Removes impediments
• Supports close cooperation across all roles and functions
• Shields the team from external interferences
• Typically facilitates the daily scrums; at the very least, he/she ensures that they occur
• Ensures that the team is fully functional and productive; facilitates Scrum Events as requested or as needed
• Coaches the organization in Scrum adoption and working with other Scrum Masters to increase effectiveness of Scrum
• Helps the Scrum Team understand the importance of clear concise Product Backlog items

Supplemental Guidelines

Who Should be a Scrum Master?

The strength of a Scrum Master is their lack of power on the team.  The Scrum Master is a servant leader who enjoys helping the team succeed by removing impediments, coaching the team how to effectively develop software and follow the Scrum process.

The Scrum Master can be a Project Manager when:

• • they respect the self management of the team
  • they can abandon a command and control style
  • they empower/ the team make their own decisions

A Scrum Master should have experience developing software.

Note that being a Scrum Master is often a full-time job for new teams.

Is the Scrum Master a Manager?

A Scrum Master must have managerial skills so that they can remove impediments and help the organization adopt Scrum.

It's a whole lot easier to affect change when you have managerial skills, know how decisions are made within the organization, who makes them, which coalitions exist, and how to influence those around you.

The Scrum Master has no authority over Scrum team members, however, the Scrum Master does have authority over the process

Role of Management in Scrum

Management is effective when they:

• Support Product Owner with insights and information into high value product and system capabilities
• Support the Scrum Master to cause organizational change that fosters empiricism, self-organization, bottom-up intelligence, and intelligent release of software