The Scrum Master is responsible to help the team grow to be a cross-functional and self-organizing team and derive maximum benefits of adopting Scrum. Moving from traditional functional silos and top-down driven teams to cross-functional and self-organizing teams requires a major shift in the behaviors of people, in the organizational structure as well as culture.
Coaching is the best intervention to accomplish deeper and sustainable change in the way people think and behave.
The Scrum Master brings a thorough understanding and practical application of the Scrum values, the Scrum framework and its rules. This knowledge and experience informs the Scrum Master to identify the most appropriate intervention for the context. Coaching being one of that intervention in the Scrum Master’s toolbox.
While the Product Owner is responsible for improving ROI through Product direction, the Development Team is responsible for translating the Product Owner’s vision into working product and delivering high-quality product increment, the Scrum Master is responsible for building the capability within the Scrum Team to maximize the value it can deliver.
Since the Scrum Master is not responsible for product direction, delivering the product and people management, she can observe the action on the ground as well as step back to view it from a 30,000 feet view. Allowing her an opportunity to bring back observations and insights which may be blind spots for the team.
If the Scrum Master observes the Scrum Team derailing from any of its own goals, she can help them get focused and quickly help them channelize their effort to reorient the Scrum Team toward meeting the bigger organizational goal.
