The Scrum Alliance recently published two, twelve-page, specialty reports—
Scrum Masters—Skills in the New World of Work
And
Product Owners—Skills in the New World of Work
They were interesting and chock full of data, insights, and perspectives.
However, one thing stood out for me—
There’s too complex of a message in each. For example, these are two charts from the reports pointing to the shift in skills and knowledge in both roles—
In my view, these messages need to be simplified to the following—
For the Scrum Master – The #1 functional skill is Technical Skills, and the #1 human skill is Communication.
For the Product Owner – The #1 functional skill is Technical Skills, and the #1 human skill is Communication.
Far too many skill considerations are on the charts, which muddies the same clear message.
In the new world of work, if you want to be a Scrum Master or Product Owner, you need to develop your technical/business domain and your communication skills. Everything else pales in comparison.
Far too many Scrum Masters and Product Owners are diluted in their growth strategies. The Agile Industrial Complex and certification industries are big parts of that.
A sort of ironic observation is that very few of the certification bodies/classes focus on these areas.
Thankfully, though, there is a clear and compelling message. Now, Scrum Masters and Product Owners of the universe, what will you do about it?
Stay agile, my friends,
Bob.
For fun, you might want to review this LinkedIn post that reacts to the Scrum Master report - https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dave-westgarth_agile-scrum-scrummaster-activity-7226230354062299140-LPGB
I think the phrase "communication skills" is vague and ambiguous. I often hear "we need to communicate better", but I rarely hear what that means, specifically. Yelling louder? Repeating things over and over to people who are tired of hearing things? Using Slack more? Using email instead of Slack? Calling on the phone rather than using IM's? Or any one of a myriad of other possibilities?
I'm torn on the #1 Functional Skill for Scrum Masters being Technical Skills. While I will agree that it is a big benefit to be able to understand the technology the team is working on, there is no shortage of people who can do the technical work. There is a huge deficit of people who want to serve others and are able to help people and teams work effectively. If you are able to contribute to technical work, there is a lot of incentive to then ask you to contribute to the output. This would remove the only role caring for the team.
Much of our workforce today emphasizes specialization, and in this instance, my preference is to retain the specialization of humanist for the scrum master role. At this point in time, maybe Educator is the most valuable functional skill of the role.
We discussed this recently on the Moose Herd - perhaps it is time to find a new name for the Scrum Master role. This is one area where I do prefer SAFe's change to Team Coach. It still carries the burden of the word coach, but it doesn't tie the work to Scrum or even to Agile. It's just an emphasis on a role focused on helping the team be their best.
As always, there are exceptions. I just have not seen, nor heard of an organization that has been able to maintain stable, engaged and well-led teams for the long-haul. There is so much flux in life that I believe there will always be a need for someone to be able to focus on the team and their success and not get called into contributing to the output. Removing the temptation seems like the simplest solution.