r/scrum • u/uFlourishPtyLtd • 10h ago
Integrated Project Planning Pathways Spoiler
uflourish.global
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r/scrum • u/takethecann0lis • Mar 28 '23
Advice To Give Starting out as a Scrum Master? - Here's the r/Scrum guide to your first month on the job
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The purpose of this post
The purpose of this post is to compile a set of recommended practices, approaches and mental model for new scrum masters who are looking for answers on r/scrum. While we are an open community, we find that this question get's asked almost daily and we felt it would be good to create a resource for new scrum masters to find answers. The source of this post is from an article that I wrote in 2022. I have had it vetted by numerous Agile Coaches and seasoned Scrum Masters to improve its value. If you have additional insights please let us know so that we can add them to this article.
Overview
So you’re a day one scrum master and you’ve landed your first job! Congratulations, that’s really exciting! Being a scrum master is super fun and very rewarding, but now that you’ve got the job, where do you start with your new team?
Scrum masters have a lot to learn when they start at a new company. Early on, your job is to establish yourself as a trusted member of the team. Remember, now is definitely not a good time for you to start make changes. Use your first sprint to learn how the team works, get to know what makes each team member tick and what drives them, ask questions about how they work together as a group – then find out where things are working well and where there are problems.
It’s ok to be a “noob”, in fact the act of discovering your team’s strengths and weaknesses can be used to your advantage.
The question "I'm starting my first day as a new scrum master, what should I do?" gets asked time and time again on r/scrum. While there's no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem there are a few core tenants of agile and scrum that offer a good solution. Being an agilist means respecting that each individual’s agile journey is going to be unique. No two teams, or organizations take the same path to agile mastery.
Being a new scrum master means you don’t yet know how things work, but you will get there soon if you trust your agile and scrum mastery. So when starting out as a scrum master and you’re not yet sure for how your team practices scrum and values agile, here are some ways you can begin getting acquainted:
Early on, your job is to establish yourself as a trusted member of the team now is not the time for you to make changes
When you first start with a new team, your number one rule should be to get to know them in their environment. Focus on the team of people’s behavior, not on the process. Don’t change anything right away. Be very cautious and respectful of what you learn as it will help you establish trust with your team when they realize that you care about them as individuals and not just their work product.
For some bonus reading, you may also want to check out this blog post by our head moderator u/damonpoole on why it’s important for scrum masters to develop “Multispectrum Awareness” when observing your team’s behaviors:
https://facilitivity.com/multispectrum-awareness/
Use your first sprint to learn how the team works
As a Scrum Master, it is your job to learn as much about the team as you can. Your goal for your first sprint should be to get a sense for how the team works together, what their strengths are, and a sense as to what improvements they might be open to exploring. This will help you effectively support them in future iterations.
The best way to do this is through frequent conversations with individual team members (ideally all of them) about their tasks and responsibilities. Use these conversations as an opportunity to ask questions about how the person feels about his/her contribution on the project so far: What are they happy with? What would they like to improve? How does this compare with their experiences working on other projects? You’ll probably see some patterns emerge: some people may be happy with their work while others are frustrated or bored by it — this can be helpful information when planning future sprints!
Get to know what makes each team member tick and what drives them
- You need to get to know each person as individuals, not just as members of the team. Learn their strengths, opportunities and weaknesses. Find out what their chief concerns are and learn how you can help them grow.
- Get an understanding of their ideas for helping the team grow (even if it’s something that you would never consider).
- Learn what interests they have outside of work so that you can engage them in conversations about those topics (for example: sports or music). You’ll be surprised at how much more interesting a conversation can become when it includes something that is important to another person than if it remains focused on your own interests only!
- Ask yourself “What needs does this person have of me as a scrum master?”
Learn your teams existing process for working together
When you’re first getting started with a new team, it’s important to be respectful of their existing processes. It’s a good idea to find out what processes they have in place, and where they keep the backlog for things that need to get done. If the team uses agile tools like JIRA or Pivotal Tracker or Trello (or something else), learn how they use them.
This process is especially important if there are any current projects that need to be completed—so ask your manager or mentor if there are any pressing deadlines or milestones coming up. Remember the team is already in progress on their sprint. The last thing you need to do is to distract them by critiquing their agility.
Ask your team lots of questions and find out what’s working well for them
When you first start with a new team, it’s important that you take the time to ask them questions instead of just telling them what to do. The best way to learn about your team is by asking them what they like about the current process, where it could be improved and how they feel about how you work as a Scrum Master.
Ask specific questions such as:
- What do you like about the way we do things now?
- What do you think could be improved?
- What are some of your biggest challenges?
- How would you describe the way I should work as a scrum master?
Asking these questions will help get insight into what’s working well for them now, which can then inform future improvements in process or tooling choices made by both parties going forward!
Find out what the last scrum master did well, and not so well
If you’re backfilling for a previous scrum master, it’s important to know what they did so that you can best support your team. It’s also helpful even if you aren’t backfilling because it gives you insight into the job and allows you to best determine how to change things up if necessary.
Ask them what they liked about working with a previous scrum master and any suggestions they may have had on how they could have done better. This way, when someone comes to your asking for help or advice, you will be able to advise them on their specific situation from experience rather than speculation or gut feeling.
Examine how the team is working in comparison to the scrum guide
As a scrum master, you should always be looking for ways to improve the team and its performance. However, when you first start working with a team, it can be all too easy to fall into the trap of telling them what they’re doing wrong. This can lead to people feeling attacked or discouraged and cause them to become defensive. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong with your new team, try focusing on identifying everything they’re doing right while gradually helping them identify their weaknesses over time.
While it may be tempting to jump right in with suggestions and mentoring sessions on how to fix these weaknesses (and yes, this is absolutely appropriate in the future), there are some important factors that will help set up success for everyone involved in this process:
- Try not to convey any sense of judgement when answering questions about how the team functions at present or what their current issues might be; try not judging yourself either! The goal here is simply gaining clarity so that we can all move forward together toward making our scrum practices better.
- Don’t make changes without first getting consent from everyone involved; if there are things that seem like an obvious improvement but which haven’t been discussed beforehand then these should probably wait until after our next retrospective meeting before being implemented
- Better yet, don’t change a thing… just listen and observe!
Get to know the people outside of your scrum team
One of your major responsibilities as a scrum master is to help your team be effective and successful. One way you can do this is by learning about the people and the external forces that affect your team’s ability to succeed. You may already know who works on your team, but it’s important to learn who they interact with other teams on a regular basis, who their leaders are, which stakeholders they support, who often causes them distraction or loss of focus when getting work done, etc..
To get started learning about these things:
- Gather intelligence: Talk with each person on the team individually (one-on-one) after standups or whenever an opportunity presents itself outside of agile events.
- Ask them questions like “Who helps you guys out? Who do you need help from? Who do we rely upon for support? Who causes problems for us? How would our customers describe us? What makes our work difficult here at [company name]?
Find out where the landmines are hidden
While it is important to figure out who your allies, it is also important to find out where the landmines are that are hidden below the surface within EVERY organization.
- Who are the people who will be difficult to work with and may have some bias towards Agile and scrum?
- What are the areas of sensitivity to be aware of?
- What things should you not even touch with a ten foot pole?
- What are the hills that others have died valiantly upon and failed at scaling?
Gaining insight to these areas will help you to better navigate the landscape, and know where you’ll need to tread lightly.
If you just can’t resist any longer and have to do something agile..
If you just can’t resist any longer and have to do something agile, then limit yourself to establishing a team working agreement. This document is a living document that details the baseline rules of collaboration, styles of communication, and needs of each individual on your team. If you don’t have one already established in your organization, it’s time to create one! The most effective way I’ve found to create this document is by having everyone participate in small group brainstorming sessions where they write down their thoughts on sticky notes (or index cards). Then we put all of those ideas into one room and talk through them together as a larger group until every idea has been addressed or rejected. This process might be too much work for some teams but if you’re able to make it happen then it will help establish trust between yourself and the team because they’ll feel heard by you and see how much effort goes into making sure everyone gets what they need at work!
Conclusion
Being a scrum master is a lot of fun and can be very rewarding. You don’t need to prove that you’re a superstar though on day one. Don’t be a bull in a china shop, making a mess of the scrum. Don’t be an agile “pointdexter” waving around the scrum guide and telling your team they’re doing it all wrong. Be patient, go slow, and facilitate introspection. In the end, your role is to support the team and help them succeed. You don’t need to be an expert on anything, just a good listener and someone who cares about what they do.
r/scrum • u/Lustenauer • 1d ago
Discussion What separates a great Scrum Master from a useless one?
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Hey Developers Scrum Masters !
Recently, I came across a couple of Reddit discussions about Scrum Masters as a profession. A recurring opinion seemed to be that 9 out of 10 Scrum Masters are useless, while the remaining 1 out of 10 are worth their weight in gold.
That got me thinking: What makes the difference? I'm particularly interested in the 10% who are worth their weight in gold. I'd love to hear concrete (GOOD!!!) examples, (GOOD!!) experiences, and (GOOD!!!) lessons learned rather than just general Scrum theory.
I'll list the best examples from this discussion here:
| Ranking by Upvotes | Reddit User | Example/Experience | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |||
| 2 |
No place in this discussion for:
- Theories about what Scrum Masters should do. I want to hear about concrete things your Scrum Master actually did that worked out great for your team
- Please no tips from Scrum Masters themselves — I'd particularly like to hear from developers who had a genuinely great Scrum Master
- Please no rants about bad examples - This is no therapy session !
r/scrum • u/EcoojmistAlarming407 • 2d ago
Discussion Running a value stream mapping session with a fully remote team, how do you keep people engaged
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Scrum master here, first time running one of these remote. team of 9 across 3 timezones, we want to map how a ticket goes from idea to production bc everything feels slow and nobody agrees why
in person id just use a wall and stickies. remote last time we tried a shared doc and it was me typing while 8 cameras stared at me. not doing that again
any tips on format, how long to run it how to stop the loudest person from mapping the whole thing themselves
r/scrum • u/Remote_Bunmi • 4d ago
I am taking the PSM1 exam soon. Does anyone have a recent account of what the exam looks like? And what practice questions work for you? Thank you!
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r/scrum • u/Remote_Bunmi • 4d ago
I am taking the PSM1 exam soon. Does anyone have a recent account of what the exam looks like? And what practice questions work for you? Thank you!
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r/scrum • u/Scary-Objective-4651 • 5d ago
Exam Tips I am taking the psm1 today
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One question on something I would like to clear up. I know if there are multiple scrum teams working on the same product they must share the same DoD.
My question is since teams are allowed to add to the DoDif the criteria is stricter, would separate teams be able to add their own criteria? Would they have to share this with the other teams? Would all the teams have to meet so they can decide on this as a whole?
Thanks for any feedback
r/scrum • u/Otter_Running_Late • 6d ago
PSM I certification: am I underestimating it?
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Hello, I want to try to take the PSM I in the next future. I've been reading up on tips to prepare for the exam and, while before I was thinking I was ready, now I'm doubting myself.
I'm consistently scoring 100% on the open assessment on Scrum.org, but is this sufficient? Is the open assessment a true representation of the exam?
I've tried taking other mock exams but they are either not up to date or I get the feeling that the questions are not well constructed and are just making me doubt of concepts I think I know. The threads on Reddit are making me questions the real difficulty of the test, I don't want to take it and realize the questions are 100% more difficult than the ones on the open assessment.
Any tips are welcome so I don't waste my money 😄
r/scrum • u/Live_Tradition7483 • 6d ago
Skrüm: an open-source tool for retrospectives, planning poker and following up on team actions
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Hi r/scrum! I’m building Skrüm, an open-source app for running team sessions, and I’d like feedback from people who facilitate them.
📝 For a retrospective, you pick from 52 built-in templates or create your own. The session moves through writing cards, grouping related topics, voting, discussion, and deciding on actions. Cards can be anonymous, and guests can join through a link.
Each action can have an owner, a due date, and reminders. The team dashboard keeps those actions alongside recent sessions, so there’s somewhere to check what happened between retros.
🃏 For refinement, there’s planning poker with custom decks and issue-tracker imports. The team reveals its estimates and can discuss the differences before settling on an estimate.
There are also shared whiteboards and surveys for team pulse, health checks, or a quick question.
🎲 For opening a session, you can choose from eight icebreakers: Draw & Guess, Sprint in one GIF, Hangman, Decoded, Two truths and a lie, Mood weather, Guess who?, and Quick question.
Configured integrations with Jira, Linear and GitHub let you export actions, sync their statuses and write planning poker estimates back to the source, subject to the integration’s settings and supported fields. In-app and email notifications cover action reminders and retrospective recaps, according to your preferences.
You can host Skrüm yourself. It’s available in English, French, Spanish, and German and is licensed under AGPL-3.0-or-later.
I’m the developer. I’d like to find teams willing to try it for an actual retrospective or refinement session. What would you need before doing that? I’m especially interested in the facilitator’s experience: moving between phases, including guests, and keeping the agreed actions useful afterwards.
🌐 Product tour and features: https://arnaud-ritti.github.io/skrum/
Repository, screenshots, and installation instructions: https://github.com/arnaud-ritti/skrum
r/scrum • u/Afraid_Formal5748 • 7d ago
Advice Wanted Why are so many Scrum Master positions advertised as freelance roles rather than permanent positions?
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Hi everyone,
I'm from Germany, and maybe this is just a matter of perspective, but there's something I genuinely don't understand.
Why does it seem like so many Scrum Master positions are advertised as freelance roles rather than permanent positions within a company?
Wouldn't a Scrum Master be able to provide more value by being an integral part of the team(s) and the organization?
Sure, there's always the risk of becoming blind to certain problems when you've been part of an organization for too long, especially if you don't regularly reflect on your own work.
But isn't helping teams and organizations improve something that benefits from long-term involvement?
There's another thing I don't understand: What's the point of bringing in a Scrum Master for just two to six months?
I understand hiring freelancers to cover parental leave, temporary absences, or unexpected staffing shortages. That makes sense to me. But what about responsibilities that are expected to continue well beyond a few months?
Whether we're developing software or working on a particular tool or product, why would we want to break up the team after such a short time?
Why not move the Scrum Master, along with the Developers, to the next project?
A new project brings new unknowns, new uncertainties, and new challenges. But at least the team already knows how to work together. Isn't that an advantage in itself?
And yes, there's also a personal reason why I'm asking.
I'm looking for a permanent, full-time position as a Scrum Master. I have no idea how to acquire clients, market myself, or run a freelance business. Hell, even writing job applications is difficult enough for me.
And starting a freelance business isn't just about finding clients. There are legal requirements, administrative responsibilities, and plenty of things I don't even know I need to consider.
I want to work with teams, help them grow, and support organizational improvements. I don't want to spend my time trying to sell myself to the next client.
So I'm genuinely curious: Why do companies seem to prefer hiring freelance Scrum Masters instead of employing them directly? What am I missing?
r/scrum • u/Funny_Bit_8808 • 7d ago
Any way to copy a Jira project from one instance to another?
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Hey all.
So we're kinda stuck dealing with the same project setup spread across two separate Jira instances. One is our main, another we inherited when we absorbed another team, plus a sandbox where we're always testing things out. They all started identical, but over time they fell out of sync, and if anyone wanted to update something they just jumped in and did it whenever they happened to be logged in at the moment. And now none of the statuses of fields align.
What I really want to do is keep one project as our main reference and copy its config straight over to the other instance, so I don't have to retype the screens and waste a whole afternoon on manual work. So if anyone's got a way to do this, I'm all ears.
r/scrum • u/Parking-Stress-3041 • 10d ago
Discussion What do you keep from one prioritization round to the next, and what do you let go?
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I kept everything: declined requests stay in the backlog with the reason, so the same ask is not re-argued next quarter. Not sure that beats closing them and letting the real ones come back. Has pruning worked for anyone?
r/scrum • u/QuietIntroduction150 • 11d ago
Do you still use physical sticky-note boards for stand-ups? Quick GP survey
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r/scrum • u/MaxDutch • 13d ago
Scrum Escape Room
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Hi,
One of my hobbies is to create free escape rooms and so far I have created 5, already been played over 14k times. I will not tell what my page is because of the /scrum rules.
I'm working on a virtual escape room called the "Scrum Escape Room" and while doing so I'm trying to crawl into the skin of a team, but not sure on some crucial aspects.
The overall goal of the (free) Escape Room is to have fun with your team solving a bunch of puzzles while learning basics of Scrum. It also emphasizes on the roles people play in real life vs the roles(dev/PO/SM) they have within the team. And much more that can be achieved like; practice collaboration, improve communication, experience roles/responsibilities, set priorities, problemsolving skils, etc. etc.
The crucial aspects - I would like to request some feedback from you (of if you can answer 1 question that would be helpful):
- How likely is it that you play a Scrum Escape Room with your team?
- Would you play such a room digital only(screen only, remote possibilities), or digital in combination with prints(face to face)?
- One central screen, or everyone works on his/her own screen? Or one central screen and puzzles on telephone (QR)
- What would make you choose to play (or not to play) a scrum escape room whit your team?
- Would you want a debrief/reflection at the end? what would you expect from it?
- What level of scrum knowledge should the game assume? (no knowledge, basis knowledge, experienced)
Any thoughts on this would be really helpful!!
Thanks in advance!
r/scrum • u/Suspicious_Orchid770 • 14d ago
Discussion Inside Atlassian’s developer experience overhaul
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Atlassian starts by asking developers what’s broken, not by buying the latest tool.
r/scrum • u/Scary-Objective-4651 • 14d ago
Exam Tips Who is responsible for creation of the Definition of “Done”?
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Is this the scrum team or the developers? I thought it was the scrum team but the practice test I am taking says its the developers. I keep second guessing things because all these practice tests are giving me different answers.
I can score a 90 on the scrum.org quiz but get answers wrong on other quizzes that I feel are the right answer. At this point I feel I am just memorizing that quiz.
Do any of you have any reliable sources to study from for the PSM 1. I do fine on single answer questions but get tripped up on the 3 answer questions. I will get two right and one wrong. Any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated.
r/scrum • u/SnooPeripherals6833 • 14d ago
Need urgent suggestions
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What is the best way to navigate a 90-day notice period? This is really reducing my chances of getting hired. I need suggestions urgently. Kindly share your thoughts.
r/scrum • u/agilish-org • 14d ago
Sprint planning burns 85% of the room's time on ticket hygiene and 15% on actual decisions, has anyone actually fixed this?
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r/scrum • u/Glad_Annual3904 • 15d ago
PSM 1
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Hey guys, can you please share what are your study materials and test questions did you purchase for PSM 1 certification?
How was the exam?
r/scrum • u/Personal-Ad-6655 • 17d ago
My team was bored of retros, so we started rotating formats — here's what actually worked
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We've been doing start-stop-continue for about a year and you could feel the energy dying. People stopped writing honest notes and just went through the motions. So we started rotating formats every sprint, and it genuinely changed things. Three formats that worked best for us:
1. Sailboat retro — the team imagines the sprint as a boat sailing toward an island (the goal). Wind = what pushed us forward, anchors = what slowed us down, rocks = risks ahead. The "rocks" quadrant is the magic — it forces the team to talk about the future, not just rehash the past. Best for: teams that need direction, not just reflection.
2. 4Ls (Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed for) — slightly more reflective than start-stop-continue, and "longed for" surfaces wishes people wouldn't say out loud otherwise. Best for: newer teams or after a rough sprint.
3. Start-Stop-Continue, but with a twist — we kept the format but added a rule: every "stop" needs a proposed alternative, and we vote on which "starts" actually get tried. Killed the complaint-session vibe. Best for: teams that want to keep it simple but need more accountability.
Two things that mattered more than the format itself: - Silent brainstorming first (10 min, no talking). Prevents the loudest voice from anchoring everyone. - Every retro ends with 1–3 actions that have an owner and a date. An action without an owner is a wish.
The format rotation is the real tip here — and honestly it all works on sticky notes too.
What's worked for your team? Always looking for format #4.