The Scrum Master role in an organization can be difficult. You live between a rock and a hard place. You’re influential but you probably don’t have any real power. You’re not a project manager but you’re on the hook for delivering. You’re asked to promise dates when the best you can give is a forecast. You’re long on responsibility and short on power. (Awesome.) But you do it because it’s a great job, right? There’s nothing like helping your team come together and deliver actual working software.
It takes a special kind of person to be Scrum Master — Nerves of steel, a lot of finesse, and some ridiculously great people skills. It’s a lot of knowing what to look for and knowing how to fix it. Even better if you can anticipate issues and get in front of them. What can you do to help keep everything on track? How do you have the difficult conversations when things are ‘sub-optimal’? From that lazy guy on your team, to the Product Owner who doesn’t like to estimate, to you losing your mind because you’re always picking up the slack. How do you help your team to solve problems and really sing? You’re a good Scrum Master. Come find out how to be great.
About the speaker:
Benjamin Day is a consultant and trainer specializing in software best practices using Scrum with Microsoft’s ALM tools. Ben’s main areas of emphasis include Team Foundation Server, Scrum, software testing, and software architecture. He is a Microsoft Visual Studio ALM MVP, a certified Scrum trainer via Scrum.org, and a speaker at conferences such as TechEd, DevTeach, and VSLive. When not developing software, Ben’s been known to go running and sea kayaking in order to balance out his love of cheese, cured meats, and champagne. He can be contacted via http://www.benday.com.
