Human Factors in Engineering

TH12 Top 10 Ways to Go from Good to Great Scrum Master

08/10/2023

11:00am - 12:15pm

Level: Intermediate to Advanced

Benjamin Day

Author, Trainer, Developer

The Scrum Master role in an organization can be difficult. You live between a rock and a hard place. You're influential but you probably don't have any real power. You're not a project manager but you're on the hook for delivering. You're asked to promise dates when the best you can give is a forecast. You're long on responsibility and short on power. (Awesome.) But you do it because it's a great job, right? There's nothing like helping your team come together and deliver actual working software.

It takes a special kind of person to be Scrum Master -- Nerves of steel, a lot of finesse, and some ridiculously great people skills. It's a lot of knowing what to look for and knowing how to fix it. Even better if you can anticipate issues and get in front of them. What can you do to help keep everything on track? How do you have the difficult conversations when things are 'sub-optimal'? From that lazy guy on your team, to the Product Owner who doesn't like to estimate, to you losing your mind because you're always picking up the slack. How do you help your team to solve problems and really sing? You're a good Scrum Master. Come find out how to be great.

You will learn:

  • If you're technically-oriented Scrum Master, how do you help your team without accidentally ruining their ability to self-organize?
  • How to find the right balance between Big-Design-Up-Front, Emergent Architecture, and suicidally reckless non-planning
  • Some basic (and not-so-basic) people skills that every developer should know plus how to efficiently align Teams with Products