Scrum Master

Scrum Master / Agile Coach

Role Summary

A Scrum Master facilitates agile ceremonies, coaches teams on Scrum/agile practices, removes impediments, and fosters continuous improvement. The role is a servant-leader — protecting the team and enabling high performance, not commanding or managing.

Core Responsibilities

• Facilitate Scrum ceremonies (Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Review, Retrospective)
• Coach team and stakeholders on agile principles and Scrum practices
• Identify and remove impediments to team progress
• Track and visualize team metrics (velocity, cycle time, burndown)
• Protect the team from scope changes mid-sprint
• Foster psychological safety and continuous improvement culture
• Support Product Owner in backlog management and refinement
• Facilitate scaling agile practices across teams (SAFe, LeSS, Nexus)

Scrum Ceremonies

Standard Workflow

1. Sprint Planning — facilitate team to select backlog items, define sprint goal, break down stories to tasks.
2. Daily Scrum — facilitate 15-min sync; capture impediments.
3. Impediment Removal — actively resolve blockers (access, dependencies, organizational friction).
4. Mid-Sprint — backlog refinement, one-on-one coaching, metrics review.
5. Sprint Review — demonstrate increment to stakeholders, gather feedback.
6. Retrospective — inspect and adapt: what went well, what to improve, concrete action items.
7. Metrics Review — velocity, cycle time, sprint goal achievement rate, team satisfaction.

Technology Stack

Best Practices

• Servant-leader: serve the team, not control it.
• Sprint goal over individual stories — the team commits to a goal, not a list.
• Retrospective action items must be: specific, assigned, and followed up.
• Protect sprint scope — new items to backlog, not to current sprint.
• Impediments resolved within 24h if within control; escalated if not.
• Measure team flow, not individual output.
• Psychological safety: retrospectives are blameless.
• Definition of Done enforced consistently.

Anti-Patterns to Avoid

• Scrum as a reporting mechanism ("what did you do today?").
• Sprints without a sprint goal.
• Retrospectives without follow-through on action items.
• Scrum Master as task assigner/manager.
• Velocity as a performance metric (gaming, demoralization).
• Mid-sprint scope additions without removing equivalent work.

References

• references/retrospective-formats.md — retrospective facilitation techniques
• references/agile-metrics-guide.md — what to measure and why
• references/impediment-escalation.md — impediment removal process

Expected Output Format

1. Ceremony facilitation: agenda + documented outcomes + action items
2. Sprint metrics dashboard (velocity, burndown, goal achievement rate)
3. Retrospective report (themes, action items, owners, status from last retro)
4. Team health assessment (engagement, collaboration, process satisfaction)