Scrum Master Certification Day 5 Q/A Review: Scrum Master Roles & Responsibilities, Servant Leadership & Coaching

In this post, we will be sharing the Day 5 live session review with the FAQs of Scrum Master Certification Day 5 Training which will help you in understanding the Product Owner Roles, Development team Roles, Roles & Responsibilities, Servant Leadership, Facilitation & Coaching.

The previous week, In Day 4 Live Session, we have covered the basic concepts of Scrum Scrum Master Certification which will help you in understanding the five scrum ceremonies/events like Sprint, Sprint Review, Daily Scrum, and a brief overview of MoSCoW.
In Day 3 Live Session, we have covered the basic concepts of Scrum Scrum Master Certification which will help you in understanding three Scrum Artifacts: Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, and Increment and concepts of User stories.
In Day 2 Live Session, we have covered the basic concepts of  Scrum Master Certification which will help you in understanding some basic concepts of basics of Scrum, Scrum values & frameworks and concepts of sprints.

So, here we discuss some Q/A’s asked during the Live session from Module 5: Scrum Master Roles & Responsibilities. and Module 6: Facilitation, Coaching, and Servant Leadership.

Scrum Master Roles & Responsibilities.

A Scrum Master (Scrum Master), popularly known as the “servant leader” is a coach, motivator and leader of an Agile team. The role of a Scrum Master is to educate the team on Agile processes and help team members follow Scrum practices religiously.
A good Scrum Master helps to establish a high-performing team dynamic, a continuous flow, and exponential improvement in processes. They are required to play a pivotal role and are responsible for the progressive development of a Scrum team.

Question 1: What are the responsibilities of the Scrum Team?
Answer: The Scrum Team is one that’s self-organizing and involves five to seven members. The following are their responsibilities:

• Working products must be developed and delivered during each sprint.
• Ownership and transparency must be ensured for the work assigned to the team members.
• Correct and crisp information must be provided to ensure a successful daily scrum meeting.
• They must collaborate with the team and themselves.

Question 2: How does a Scrum Master help the Scrum team in their tasks?
Answer: The Scrum Master provides support to the Scrum Team in a variety of ways, including

• Mentoring members of the team in self-management and cross-functionality.
• Assisting the Scrum Team in focusing on creating elevated Increments that meet the Definition of Done.
• Removing roadblocks to the Scrum Team’s progress.
• Ensuring that all Scrum events occur and are positive, productive, and kept within the timeframe.

Question 3: How does a Scrum Master help the Product Owner?
Answer: The Product Owner benefits from the Scrum Master in a variety of ways, including

• Assisting in the use of strategies for successful product goal definition and backlog management. 
• Assisting the Scrum Team in comprehending the need of having clear and precise Product Backlog items. 
• Assisting in the development of empirical product planning for a complicated environment. 

Question 4: How can a Scrum Master ensure that the three pillars of Scrum are being implemented by the team?
Answer: Following are the ways by which a Scrum Master can ensure that the three pillars of Scrum are being implemented by the team:

• Daily Scrum: Examine the Team Board and adjust the plan for the next day, making sure that any changes are communicated to the entire team. Examine the Impediments Board and, if necessary, adapt ways to address impediments.
• Sprint Planning: Examine the average Team Velocity for the preceding three or four Sprints, verify that the velocities were transparent to the team, and verify that the team adapted the Velocity to be used for Sprint planning. Examine the Product Backlog (PB) to ensure that it is current, transparent to all stakeholders and that the team adjusts the PBI estimations as needed.
• Sprint Retrospective: Examine the procedure that was followed and make preparations to adapt it if required, ensuring that any modifications are communicated to all team members.
• Sprint Review: Inspect the increment and, if necessary, adjust the Product Backlog, ensuring that any changes are communicated to all stakeholders. Examine the Release Plan and make any required adjustments, ensuring that any changes are communicated to all stakeholders.

Question 5: As a Scrum Master, what are some factors to take care of while managing remote teams?
Answer: While managing remote Scrum teams, a Scrum Master should take care of the following:

• Always deliver engaging, relevant information. 
• Always be accessible to all team members.
• Facilitate collaboration and sharing.
• Use online communication tools effectively.
• Avoid over-communicating your decisions

Question 6:  Is Scrum Master a ‘management’ position?
Answer: Yes. The Scrum Master position is a management level position, but it is not a manager position. Scrum Master does not manage the Scrum Team or even the Development Team but manages the Scrum process. If the Scrum Master is not at the management position, he or she may not have the influence to remove the impediments.

Question 7: How will a Scrum Master prevent extreme weariness induced due to retrospectives?
Answer: When Scrum teams repeat the same pattern of a retrospective sprint after sprint, the teams become tired of it. The Scrum Master must be willing to experiment with different patterns and, on occasion, change the location. Anything that occurs on a regular basis in the same format tends to generate a dull meeting setting. Some teams may choose to go out to lunch and have a conversation there; this not only facilitates collaboration but also creates a safe setting in which to speak. The Scrum Master must ensure that the substance of a retrospective is not lost while creating a favourable environment to prevent boredom. Even if you’re employing various patterns, the intent should remain the same.

Question 8: A Product Owner of one of the Scrum Teams, has been attending the Daily Scrum. During the Daily Scrum, the Development Team members have been reporting their daily work to the product owner so that he is aware of their Sprint progress and what each member is working on. What is the best action for the Scrum Master to take?
Answer: Because the Development Team is the ones doing the work, they are best suited to inspect and adapt the progress toward the Sprint Goal. At a minimum, this is done every 24 hours through the Daily Scrum. It is the Scrum Master’s responsibility to teach the Scrum Team the value and objective of each Scrum event in order for them to optimize the benefits of each event. Because the Daily Scrum is owned by the Development Team, it is up to them on how they should run it but the Scrum Master can provide guidance to ensure it adheres to the Scrum guidelines. So the best way would be to coach the product owner and the development team Coach the product owner and Development Team members on the purpose of the Scrum events and let them figure out what to do in this situation.

Question 9: How will the Scrum Master make sure that the team delivers action items on time?
Answer: The team must identify action items in order for the retrospective to be effective. This provides the team with a starting point for a discussion, but simply naming will not suffice. The action items should be closed as soon as possible, and the scrum master should take steps to accomplish this. Every action item should have an owner, and teams should avoid assigning several owners to a single item because ownership becomes diluted. The scrum master should keep track of action items in a program or spreadsheet that is accessible to everyone on the team. Having a backlog of action items is also beneficial since it allows the team to prioritize.

Question 10: How does the Scrum Master serve the Organization?
Answer: The Scrum Master serves the organization in several ways, including

• Leading, training, and coaching the organization in its Scrum adoption;
• Planning and advising Scrum implementations within the organization;
• Helping employees and stakeholders understand and enact an empirical approach for complex work; and,
• Removing barriers between stakeholders and Scrum Teams.

Question 11: What are the top skills of a successful Scrum Master?
Answer: Scrum Master makes the team self-serving and autonomous. A successful Scrum Master is expected to motivate the team members and increase their potential. For this, Scrum Master requires some skills that he should develop in himself. These are the skills that will help him in his career development. To become a successful Scrum Master and make a transition to the Scrum Master roles effectively, one will need the below-mentioned Scrum Master Skills:

• Remove barriers and keep the team on track
• Share experiences and encourage collaboration
• Introducing engineering practices
• Communication and good listening power
• Acting as a coach for the development team
• Flexibility & persistence
• Partnership with the Product Owner
• Wanted and Dispensable
• Optimism and Servant Leadership
• Organization and Empathy

Servant Leadership

At first, servant leadership may seem like an oxymoron. In this leadership philosophy, the primary focus of the leader is to serve those around them. In other words, a leader focuses their actions on helping others within their organization grow and thrive. While traditional leaders retain authority and control, a servant leader shares that power. This leader still wants to see their project or company succeed, but they achieve success by building up others first.
It is important to note that the inversion of roles does not mean that the ultimate goals of a servant leader are inherently different. Servant leaders still seek high-level organizational growth. This can include achieving objectives, growing revenue, increasing the client base, and more. The concept merely seeks to make such progress through a different method. In a servant leadership model, it is believed that it is possible to boost wider success by boosting the success of individuals.

Question 12: What do you mean by Scrum Master as a Servant Leader?
Answer: A servant-leader is someone who:

• Focuses on establishing a trusting relationship.
• Encourages transparency and empowerment.
• Encourages teamwork and collaboration
• Demonstrate ethical and compassionate behaviour by prioritizing the needs of others.
• Is humble, well-informed, upbeat, socially conscious, and situationally aware.

A Scrum Master is a master at motivating, enabling, and inspiring individuals to work together as a team and reach their maximum potential. A Scrum Master is a servant leader who prioritizes the needs of team members and those they serve (customers), with the purpose of generating results that are consistent with the organization’s values, principles, and goals.
The Scrum Master’s responsibilities as a servant-leader include:

• Setting Scrum up as a servant rather than a commanding process.
• Assisting the Development team in becoming self-organized.
• Guiding the group via constructive conflict and debate.
• Scrum adoption and use are taught, coached, and mentored by the organization and team

Question 13: A member of the scrum team does not want to participate in the sprint planning meetings and considers the meeting as a waste of time. How do you deal with that kind of attitude?
Answer: For a Scrum Master, it is important to understand the pulse of the team. If there’s a member in your team who takes the meetings as useless, it’s time to know why he/she is adopting such behaviour. The focus should be on the behaviour rather than the individual, the Scrum Master should try to talk to the team member individually by asking open-ended questions to find out the reason for not attending the meeting.
Certainly, there is a need to understand the cause of this behaviour and try to explain the importance of the planning meeting (Scrum ceremonies). In Scrum, each individual is important, it is like the wheels of a truck, any wheel gets dealigned or malfunctioned, the complete vehicle suffers. Hence, the need to explain the impact of not having his presence in the planning meeting and its impact on the entire team arises. Even the team can start to feel this imbalance. If it is still not resolved, the Scrum Master can set up a meeting with his reporting manager to talk about the concern and lookout for ways to help the team member and the team.

Question 14: When should a Scrum Master not act as a facilitator?
Answer: Although a Scrum Master is supposed to help the team get the best results, workshop facilitation can be tricky at times. A workshop facilitator must be impartial to the topics being addressed and should refrain from adding facts or opinions to the discussion. If the Scrum Master has the necessary expertise, he or she can facilitate most general product development workshops. However, if the workshop is about changing the Scrum process, the Scrum Master should not facilitate that session.

Quiz Time (Sample Exam Questions)!

With our Scrum Master Certification Training Program, we cover 150+ sample exam questions to help you prepare for both Certified Scrum Master & Professional Scrum Master certifications.
Check out one of the questions and see if you can crack this…

Ques: Scrum Master and Product Owner roles are not added in the count of members of the Development Team even if they are executing the work of Sprint Backlog – True or False?

A. True
B. False

Comment with your answer & we will tell you if you are correct or not!

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