Perhaps you are thinking of becoming a Scrum Master or Agile Project Manager and wondering where to start. Maybe you are currently working as a Project Manager and your organization is moving to Agile. Would you like to develop the additional skills and competencies to become an awesome Scrum Master in your new role? And if you are currently a Scrum Master, perhaps you would like some ideas to add to your personal development plan.
Based on an earlier sketch, the purpose of this post is to introduce a very basic approach geared towards identifying areas for you to grow in your competency as a Scrum Master or Agile Project Manager. There is a “How to Use This Approach” on page 2 but the purpose of this guide is purely as guidance for your own personal development journey. You can download the PDF for this approach here.
The primary competencies are split into 4 sections:
Enact the Framework. Knowing your discovery and/or delivery framework for your organization or team. Being able to facilitate framework events or activities with your team for maximum effectiveness. Understanding the mechanics of an inspect and adapt framework and shepherd the team throughout their journey.
Team Flow. Knowing how to keep the team focused on consistently delivering value. Understanding constraints and how to use them to guide the team to a steady-state of productivity. Knowing how to identify risks, keep risks from becoming impediments, and remove impediments when they occur.
Radiate Information. Knowing how to create and facilitate the usage of information radiators such as task walls. Knowing how to share progress with the team and to the rest of the organization. Understanding how to use sprint or iteration data to guide the team towards self-correction and improvement through velocity .
Team Health. Knowing how to build and sustain a team based on meaningful relationships. Knowing how to facilitate a team towards self-accountability. Understanding how to guide the team towards self-healing through powerful retrospectives. Knowing how to foster an atmosphere of appreciation and celebration.
There are also competencies to support the primary competencies and having these competencies in place will make the primary competencies that much easier:
Teaching. Knowing how to develop training materials. Knowing how to transition a new team to Agile and begin using your Agile framework. Knowing how to teach your framework or the Agile values and principles.
Mentoring. Having situational and self-awareness to respond to events appropriately as team members move through their own personal Agile journey. Knowing when and how to share knowledge and experience.
Coaching. Knowing how to listen and observe team dynamics. Understanding how to ask powerful questions and proving meaningful feedback.
Facilitating. Knowing how to guide the team to a destination and make every meeting and activity effective and meaningful. Knowing how to promote inclusion and sharing as the team moves from individual perspectives to group wisdom.
Please use this guide as a starting point and tailor it to your own situation and organizational needs. A few examples and tips for each competency are included on page 7 and 8 as well.
You can find a PDF of the Scrum Master competencies here.
Reference: Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa Adkins and materials from the Agile Coaching Institute.
2 replies on “An Approach for Scrum Master Personal Development”
[…] An Approach for Scrum Master Personal Development July 26, 2013 […]
Great advice. Agile development is a very useful method of development but it can get very complicated without proper planning and implementation.