The Scrum Master facilitates the work of the Scrum Team

The Scrum Master facilitates the work of the Scrum Team as needed, so they can become increasingly effective. He promotes meaningful and quality interactions among the Developers and between them and the Product Owner, for which good communication, transparency and constructive working relationships are essential.

This facilitation can occur as much in the Sprint Planning, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective meetings, for which the presence of the Scrum Master is mandatory, as in the team’s day-to-day work.

I strongly recommend that new teams or teams with little experience with Scrum request the Scrum Master’s assistance at the Daily Scrum meeting, even if his presence at these meetings is not prescribed by the framework. I also recommend the Scrum Master’s facilitation of the Product Backlog Refinement sessions (see chapter Product Backlog Refinement (additional)), where there are interactions between the Developers, Product Owner, and possibly other stakeholders.

A significant part of this facilitation work involves actively observing individual and group behaviors, besides reading the scenarios. For this reason, it is important that the Scrum Master maximize his presence as far as possible in the daily work of the Developers.

For more information on the role of the facilitator and facilitation techniques, see Skilled facilitator and Event facilitator in the Leads to serve the Scrum Team and the organization section of this chapter.