ScrumMaster Certification: Answering Crucial Questions – Isn't a ScrumMaster just a Project Manager by Another Name?
In prior posts in this series, we have examined a number of crucial questions regarding the Scrum Framework and the role that a ScrumMaster plays in addressing them. We conclude this series with an overview of how the role of ScrumMaster differs from that of a traditional Project Manager.
In prior posts in this series, we have examined a number of crucial questions regarding the Scrum Framework and the role that a ScrumMaster plays in addressing them. We conclude this series with an overview of how the role of ScrumMaster differs from that of a traditional Project Manager.
Before highlighting these differences and answering the question,”Isn’t a ScrumMaster just a Project Manager by Another Name?”, it is important to note that Project Managers have value. Most are good and decent people who are trying to add value wherever they can in the pursuit of a project objective. With that said, the goals of a project manager differ remarkably from those of a ScrumMaster.
A project manager is charged with ensuring the project goal is achieved within the scope, schedule, cost and quality parameters set by the project sponsor or project steering committee. While they may discuss customer value or the team in pursuit of this goal, both of these topics are secondary to it. The team is often seen as a means to end, a method of accomplishing the project.
In contrast, a ScrumMaster views the team as a source of creative, innovative energy that, when set loose in a self-organizing environment and served by an educated Product Owner and ScrumMaster, can achieve amazing results. While this may sound a little new age, it is a crucial distinction between the two roles. While a Project Manager is concerned with plans, controlling change and reporting the status of the effort to the various project stakeholders, the ScrumMaster trusts the Team and the Product Owner to work through the framework to address planning, changes and the reporting of status to stakeholders. While these items look different in Scrum, they achieve the same objective: freeing the ScrumMaster to focus on things like Team dynamics, event facilitation, and impediment removal.
A ScrumMaster is also concerned with the technical practices of the Team. While items such as the Team’s automation approach to continuous product integration are of minimal interest to most Project Managers, they fall clearly within the purview of the ScrumMaster. A ScrumMaster is a strong advocate for the Team adopting these practices and is continually educating the Team on their benefits and pushing them to continually search for, and stretch, the technical excellence of their product. Project managers might inquire as to whether the project team is controlling their source code or is regularly testing the application, but rarely will a traditional project manager push beyond this cursory inquiry.
In short, a Project Manager exists to serve the project stakeholders by providing them with an idea of the project’s progress through indirect means – how much money has been spent, how time has expired in a flawed plan, etc. A ScrumMaster instead does anything that will help the Team be a better version of itself, to, in the words of Jeff McKenna, the coach of the first Scrum Team ever, “help the Team be awesome”.
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Author: Collaborative Leadership Team. Learn more about our coaches and offerings here.
ScrumMaster Certification: Answering Crucial Questions – What's a Product?
In the first part of this four-part series, we addressed the broad question of “Why Get Scrum Certified?” However, there are benefits to obtaining your CertifiedScrum Master (CSM) certification beyond just learning the rules of the game. It also allows you to answer crucial questions using the Scrum Framework.
In the first part of this four-part series, we addressed the broad question of, “Why Get Scrum Certified?” However, there are benefits to obtaining your CertifiedScrum Master (CSM) certification beyond just learning the rules of the game. It also allows you to answer crucial questions using the Scrum Framework.
One of these questions is “What is a product and how does it differ from a project?” Projects, as defined within the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) by the Project Management Institute (PMI) are temporary in nature. People are given an objective, a start and end date and, once the objective is achieved, the team is disbanded and the project is considered “complete”. While this general definition works at some level, it leaves open the issue of who is responsible for the product created by the project once that project is complete. Anyone who works in developing software understands the inevitable struggle that occurs in attempting to hand-off the product from the development team to a support organization. Even if the development team is earnest in planning and executing this transition, this approach of handing off work from one team to another is risky and creates the opportunity for lower quality and decreased customer service.
The Scrum Framework addresses this risk by advocating product-focused thinking and product-focused teams. These teams focus on the entire product. This singular focus eliminates the hand-off described above. Moreover, it connects the development team to the end product and to the customer. If the team produces a poor quality product, they will be the ones that need to deal with the consequences of that poor quality, not another team who had a limited role at best in the development of the product.
A ScrumMaster has a unique role in helping organizations adopting the Framework. While the ScrumMaster serves the Team itself, he or she has a broader responsibility to advocate for change in organization as a whole. With this goal in mind, a ScrumMaster can take the following actions to help the organization transition from a project-focused to a product-focused organization:
- Ask Organizations to be honest about their current state – A ScrumMaster will help reveal the organization to itself. While this statement sounds deeply philosophical, what it is really driving at is the ScrumMaster patiently, respectfully, and courageously asking open-ended questions at all organizational levels in an effort to get the organization to be honest about how a project-based model is working for them. What do our customers say about our releases? What do our support call patterns look like? What is our turnover rate in our Support Center? Each of these questions will help drive the honesty that a ScrumMaster seeks from an organization looking to transition to a product-based model.
- Educate Teams and Executives on the Stages of Team Growth – A ScrumMaster can teach the organization how all teams progress from forming to storming, norming, and finally performing (see Tuckman model). By teaching this progression, ScrumMasters can help the organizations they serve understand that by breaking up a team at the end of each project they are setting any new teams that re-form back to the “forming” stage of team development.
- Facilitate Prioritization of the Product Portfolio – As a neutral coach to the organization, a ScrumMaster can help the organization prioritize the product portfolios that often grow rather large in project-based organizations. While it is up to leadership and the owners of the individual products to determine how the organization will prioritize its product investments, the ScrumMaster, based on his or her neutrality, can facilitate these important discussions.
In our next post, we will address another crucial question related to the ScrumMaster role – “what is a self-organizing team and how does a ScrumMaster help one?” If you are interested in learning more and becoming a Certified Scrum Master (CSM), check out our team offerings here.
Author: Collaborative Leadership Team. Learn more about our coaches and offerings here.