Scrum masters are nontraditional product managers who work in the agile software development of scrum. They're focused solely on conflict resolution for the team that they are product managing.
The job of a scrum master is to successfully remove any obstacles or impediments that stand in the way of the team's success. Unlike traditional project managers, scrum masters surrender control to product owners, and trust teams with self-management whenever possible to maximize efficiency.
This starts at an internal level, delegating internal tasks and deflecting external issues to the product owner. It then elevates to the analyzing operations, identifying what systems are working, and what should be improved upon. The goal of this position is to help the product owner and the team reach it's full potential. You're responsible for protecting the team's efficiency at all costs, even if what's attacking it comes from other internal resources Your reward is the team's success.
Relinquishing control isn't always easy for those with product manager experience, but the laser focus on conflict resolution is designed to let productivity reach it's highest point. You're constantly creating breakthroughs, but strictly through invitation and innovation, not through pushing people and deadlines as a traditional project manager does.
This role fits into a nontraditional context that is the scrum approach, featuring just the scrum master, the product owner, and the team. This nontraditional design means that by reporting to nobody, you're reporting to everyone.
To be a successful scrum master, you must be entirely focused on solutions. Those solutions should resolve existing conflict and problems that weren't in existence until improvements we presented. You should be very logical, and able to deflate emotional outbursts that this role may encounter. You should be comfortable with being a leader, and be able to persevere - and take heat - from people who aren't aligned with this methodology.
A scrum master's resume should show situations where you've resolved conflict through out of the box tactics and creativity. It should also demonstrate scenarios where your authority and thought process were challenged, and you're perseverance allowed to to emerge successfully. Finally, it should indicate managerial experience.
Power words: conflict resolution, solution oriented, out of the box, creative, leader, perseverance, and relationship builder