How to become a successful scrum master
with Ormit Talent and BNP Paribas Fortis.
The role of a scrum master requires both technical skills and human skills. Still… You don’t have to be a software developer to become a scrum master (but you can be 😉). Creativity, learning agility, a passion for IT and for change will get you far. Even more so within our scrum master traineeship where you’ll learn all there is to learn to become a scrum master through training, coaching and on-the-job learning.
In this blog, we give you an insight into the most important skills of a scrum master and a sneak peek at our training program in cooperation with BNP Paribas Fortis.
Technical skills
Even though you won’t be developing any tools, some technical skills are still required for this role. At BNP Paribas Fortis, scrum masters build these skills within the agile framework. Knowledge of these tools is important to organize the scrum budget and help to make your project management more efficient. And to smoothen communication with your squad (and thus, developers), you’ll have to speak and understand IT too.
Within the traineeship you’ll learn most technical skills at BNP Paribas Fortis. Where they provide a platform with plenty of scrum and agile training. Within your training budget, you also get the chance to get your scrum certificate. Next to these technical skills, you’ll get the chance to learn more about new and old technologies to better understand your squad. In short, you can develop as plenty tech skills as you want. Online and on the job.
Agility
Next to knowledge about the agile way of working, this role requires you to be agile yourself. This means you can easily adapt to change and the changing needs of your customers. You see experimenting and failure as a chance to grow. That’s how you set an example for your team to become change drivers themselves.
How? That’s something you’ll learn during Being the change. A training where you’ll be encouraged to be an early adopter that pursues change. You’ll learn more about what’s going on when people are confronted by change. But in this training, you’ll mainly reflect on how you handle it yourself and how you can support others within change.
Project management
As a scrum master, you’re also a project manager that needs to keep the team and project on schedule. This requires a mix of different skills: budget allocation, scope analysis, strategic planning, policy development, stakeholder management… But also, the ability to see the bigger picture and to understand a complex amount of information. All while being a critical thinker that creates strategies against risks and informs the team about changes when needed.
These skills you will mainly learn on the job. Though we do have some training to grow within these topics in our training program. Like critical thinking and unconscious bias. The biggest learnings? How to apply critical thinking, the effect of bias and some examples within business and life. Next to that, we’ll provide a training on stakeholder management where you’ll learn more about stakeholder analysis and action plans to deal with them by observing monkeys. Yes, real monkeys!
Coaching and facilitation skills
As a scrum master, you’re responsible for the well-being and efficiency of your team. Through coaching and facilitation management, you support your team to reach their full potential. This can be done on a personal level through reflection on strengths and development points, but also by unburdening the team in their tasks by providing the means.
To become the support your team needs, we provide multiple trainings: one about the basics of coaching that will help your team to gain insights into their strengths, pitfalls, values and where you’ll coach them on how to act upon them. A training on facilitation skills where you’ll learn how to maximize the potential of your team.
Communication skills
Coaching, facilitating and teaching. All skills that rely on effective communication, which is crucial for a scrum master. Your communication method has an important influence on your team and how they will communicate with each other and other stakeholders. Not only talking is important. You should also listen in the correct way. Through this, you can create an environment of trust and open feedback to boost creativity and innovation.
All things you won’t learn overnight. That’s why we organize multiple communication marathons. Where you’ll walk home with practical tips on how to communicate effectively and consciously following roleplays on feedback, conflict and asking questions. You’ll feel eager to implement them directly into your next conversation.
Lead by example
Since there is no real hierarchy within scrum, it might seem a bit weird that leadership skills are one of the most important skills for a scrum master. But when you look back at all the hats and responsibilities, it’s not that weird, right? As a servant leader, your impact on motivation and performance will be bigger by picking the right leadership style. Not within a hierarchy, but just as an example and inspiration for your team.
In the training on situational leadership, you’ll learn how to pick the right leadership style based on your audience, the situation and the development of your team. And how to recognize different maturity levels of teams and how to act upon them. All skills that come in handy as a servant leader.
A growth mindset
Time to practice what you preach. You can try to motivate your team with all the above skills, but you’ll need a growth mindset yourself to have a real impact. As a scrum master you must understand who you are and what your personal themes are through self-reflection and feedback.
At Ormit Talent this is something you’ll grow in at each encounter with your coach, other trainees and throughout the development program. The MBTI training, where you’ll discover your personality type and preferences. But also, how to appreciate and interact with other preferences. And even how to adapt your communication to it. This will come in handy as a scrum master. A bit later in your traineeship, you’ll also learn more about the 7 habits of highly effective people. A training where you’ll experience these habits yourself. But most importantly, you’ll go home with a clearer vision of your life and work. And happiness!
Sounds like a lot? Don’t you worry.
This happens over the course of two years. Where your coach will support you in the creation of action plans to put all of this into practice. As long as you have some basic skills and relentless curiosity about banking, IT and personal development, you’ll get there. The action plans on how to put all of this in action
Ready to become a successful scrum master together with us?