Selecting the right Scrum Master for the organisation can be a tedious task. Ajay Kabra tells you how one can simplify the decision making

Industry practices have been nurtured over the period of years by pseudo Agilest and the so-called sponsors of the transformation game from traditional project management to agile way of doing the job. Have we achieved success? Do expending millions of dollars justify? How do organisations measure Return on Investment (ROI) in their balance sheets? Nobody has a clue; the consulting organisations are making merry and laughing all the way to the bank.

One of the failure points could be the Scrum Master. Especially on how we appoint the Scrum Master, who selects them and what characteristics and traits should one look for when selecting a Scrum Master?

Let’s explore how it is done today in our industry as compared to how should this happen?

Most of the times (9 out of 10), it would be the management who would appoint a person, whom they feel qualified for the job. However, the irony is that the Management would have little or no idea what that role entails. Experience has suggested that we find the job for the person rather than find the right person for the job.

At times, the selection process of appointing the Scrum Master has been dictated by the person who is on the bench and we are trying to find a project to make the person billable or the other approach as seen is to nominate a person close to the management.

In fact, according to Scrum co-founder Dr Jeff Sutherland, great Scrum Masters can come from virtually any background or discipline (i.e., engineering, design, testing, product management, journalism, academia, social work), and their role is relatively simple:

• Remove impediments
• Guide the team in Scrum practices
• Protect against outside interference

All that a Scrum Master can do is to inspire you through effective coaching, enablement and guidance, but the implementation of the same is in your hands.

Who should be or become the Scrum Master for your new team? Is it your current project manager, Tech Lead, or the functional manager? I would have to argue against the current industry practices and say, anyone but one of these above-mentioned roles. Although, understandably, the management usually wants a standard answer for who they should select to be the Scrum Master in this new work approach called Agile it is not a one-size-fits-all answer. And the reason is because it depends on the person, the team and the environment. There are multiple factors that would impact the selection of the person for the role. It cannot be a cookie cutter approach, which is much standardised, even in the same organisation across two teams, the selections could vary (and they should vary, if the circumstances vary).

Now, the question is who decides the Scrum Master? We often see that it is the management who decides, but they make the decision without knowing what Scrum is and more importantly, how it works.

We commonly see Project Managers being given the role of Scrum Master. What makes a great Project Manager may not make a great Scrum Master. Often, the management wants Project Managers who can get things done. They drive performance and push the team. They may even micro-manage for results and visibility by tracking every task, status, risk, change and deviation from the plan. Management loves this (or, more truthfully, love the results). On the other hand, I’ve also seen Project Managers who provide management what they want (helping get more productivity and more visibility to progress, issues and options) by serving, empowering and trusting the team.

To simplify the decision making, one should look for these ideas when selecting a of Scrum Master:

• A person who understands and can practice servant leadership and facilitation
• Always in pursuit of continuous improvement
• Can create a degree of influence with team members and other stakeholders

You need a person who is humble, ego-less, collaborative in nature, knowledgeable on Scrum. Getting all of the traits in a single person could be a near to impossible task, in case we do see that happening, find from above items, which are your critical success factors for the Scrum Master role in your organisation.

The writer is Sr Director Agile transformation, Xebia IT Architects India Private Limited