What Is The Most Crucial Task Of A Scrum Master?

It’s all about flow

Photo by Jackalope West on Unsplash

Now and then, clients ask me: “What is the most important task of a Scrum Master?” Of course, the people who ask me expect answers like “the Retrospective,” “facilitating Scrum Events,” “conducting training,” etc. But there are more important things. The most important task is to optimize the flow.

The Scrum Guide says:

“The Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness.”

And it is precisely this task that the Scrum Master fulfills by optimizing the flow.

Approaches to improve the flow

1. Reduce work in progress (WIP)
This principle is more familiar from Kanban, but you can also use it within Scrum. As a Scrum Team, consider how many items may be worked on simultaneously. A low WIP limit helps to focus and to finish the started things. Vary the WIP limit from Sprint to Sprint and reflect on it in the Retrospective until you have found your optimal limit.
Coach the team on how to work together and help each other.

2. Avoid context switching
When team members cannot focus on one task but switch back and forth between multiple contexts, it slows down the work process and creates stress. Help…