Technical skills Scrum Masters need | Do Scrum Master have to be technical?

Do Scrum Masters have to be technical? A popular question that often leads to lots of disagreements and debate.
I believe a Scrum Master role is a non-technical one. BUT - there is a nuance here.
For all the developers who are already writing a long angry paragraph in the comments telling me how wrong I am and that Scrum Master is a useless role, actually watch the video first. Thanks!
Watch the video to find out what technical skills and knowledge a Scrum Master needs to be able to work with technical teams and coach them to become more effective.
In this video I talked about:
0:00 Start
02:05 ✅ What is the primary aspect of change management Scrum Masters do
02:49 ✅ Why having a development background might actually hurt you
03:42 ✅ What technical knowledge Scrum Master needs
09:19 ✅ What aspects of that technical terminology are important
10:34 ✅ How to learn that technical stuff if you are not technical
and more!
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[@ScrumMastered]

I hope this video was helpful. 📖 An in-depth practical guide for the Scrum Master job - Scrum Master Startup Guide: shop.scrummastered.com/product/scrum-master-starter-kit/ 📩 Subscribe to my newsletter to get updates on new stuff and special offers: scrummastered.com/free-downloads/

[@oluakin406]

A very BIG help as usual!!! Thanks Daria

[@tomg4137]

You rock Daria! Thank you for helping to understand what a productive and successful scrum master is. Tomaz

[@danielletchouanguep1201]

This is one of the best scrum videos I have watched so far. Very informative 🙏🙏🙏 Thank you so much

[@ScrumMastered]

Glad it was helpful!

[@PoppySeed84]

you are right. and seem like a great scrum master. but there's one thing you didn't mention. "using the software"... i've had only one really great scrum master in my career. he wasn't a coder. he had a degree in film history or something. but the thing that made him great was in genuine interest in the product we were building. he would have the latest version of what were building on his machine (he would even go through the build process himself). he would try and use the software to understand exactly what we just built and what work we have coming up. this really helped him understand how to help the team plan sprints and stories. he knew where the complex parts were. he know where the bugs were. he knew how the software was supposed to work. he may have not known how to code, but had genuine interest in what we were building. maybe this seems like an obvious thing scrum masters should do, idk. but i haven't had another scrum master like that since. ive had 3 or 4 different ones since then. all of them never had time to use/test the software we were building. they viewed themselves as "leaders", but knew nothing about what they were leading. there's always been a disconnect between the devs and the scrum master. my current scrum master complains that we get "too deep in the technical weeds" during out meetings. but we are just having normal conversations devs have during meetings.. it creates a tense environment where the devs need to be herded like children to keep them on track by the "adult" in the room... its extremely frustrating. thinking back on that one great scrum master i had, he involved himself in those conversations the best he could. he asked to be shown where the issue was. he asked general questions about the software. he wanted to understand the work he was helping to manage. and if conversations got far off the rails, we trusted him when he would guide us in another direction.

[@ScrumMastered]

@PoppySeed84 great points! I'll be actually talking a bit more about that on a podcast called Agile Within soon as we discuss what technical skills SMs need. My opinion on this topic evolved over the years and I think more tech skills and knowledge are needed.

[@luciejurikova9654]

Very good video! Very to the point!👏

[@breaktheshell1096]

Thank you for this video! really informative!! Best Scrum Chanel :)

[@sammymurray4603]

This video is on my top five all-time most helpful videos in addressing knowledge-vs-praxis gaps that never come up in training programs or certifications. I cannot thank you enough.

[@ScrumMastered]

Thank you! 🙏

[@scofah]

Thank you for your video. The background music is an additional cognitive load for those of us on the spectrum. I would recommend against it. A little bit of music goes a long way, and is workable for us when people are not speaking or if they are singing. But when people are talking, background sound effects are very challenging and cause us to click off.

[@ScrumMastered]

@scofah there's also a written blog post in my blog that follows the video transcript so that it's easier to follow my speech.

[@ricardoguillen8098]

Thank you very much. Super useful.

[@ScrumMastered]

Glad to hear that!

[@annahanna7061]

This is helpful.

[@ashleydickson62]

We moved away from scrum masters without a dev background due to bad experiences. It was like scrum painted by numbers rather than done with understanding, and they couldn't help the team adapt the technical problems to scrum or determine if the technical problems suited scrum. Scrum just isn't that complicated that it takes a full time position.

[@ScrumMastered]

That's quite unfortunate. I don't think that the problem is the technical background - you just didn't find good Scrum Masters, ever. Even now it seems that your SMs are not as good if you believe that Scrum is not complicated and it's about engineering practices.

[@ashleydickson62]

@@ScrumMastered given you werent there, in the situation, i am not sure what criteria you are using to judge or comment? this is the kind of thinking that cost the company a lot of money - one size fits all and opinions not related to the actual place. its just not agile. the complex implementations of scrum were, in our case,, imho, an unreasonable and unneccesary cost to the business. opinions from thin air are not cost effective, scrum is supposed to be emperical.

[@ashleydickson62]

@@ScrumMastered Can't possibly see how you know this when you had nothing to do with the project? Since when is being able to understand the needs of the developers a bad thing? Like running a kitchen doesn't require an understanding of cooking? Honestly these opinions plucked out from thin air are a real problem in the industry.

[@ScrumMastered]

My opinion is based on knowing what Scrum Master role is. Since we are talking metaphors here... Do you expect a therapist to have experienced exactly the same life as you to be able to help you? Or do you expect them to be versed in human psychology? I have seen enough projects in tech and non-tech environments to know what the usual implementation challenges are. And the number one problem is not understanding the Scrum framework (and hence the role of the Scrum Master). I have worked with a team of cloud developers. I know nothing about the technology. I don't even completely understand the whole concept. So how come they are my number one success story? And no, it's not based on my personal opinion. It's based on the feedback I received... from them! I didn't need to know how to cook to be able to fix the kitchen appliances. (It's a silly metaphor, but it actually works)

[@ashleydickson62]

@@ScrumMastered a psychologist wouldnt make such judgements on someone elses life from such a distance. they would do an analysis and examination. saying oh it wasnt a good scrum master, doesnt say anything really.

[@zadoksworld8905]

I tried to schedule to see you so many times but for some reason it never worked out for me. So I was wandering what next?

[@ScrumMastered]

What do you mean? Where did you try to schedule? What was the problem? You can schedule a coaching session via calendly here: scrummastered.com/scrum-master-mentorship-program/

[@jaym6655]

Would you recommend a PSM-I certification over a CSM?

[@ScrumMastered]

I am a bit biased towards PSM since I'm a trainer with Scrum.org. But both certifications are well recognized and respected

[@elderdragon5657]

Truth be told, our Agile team currently have a scrum master who is really bad. A big problem is that she is not technical, and even when she presented herself as non-technical, it still became a problem with the team. The problem is that in the absence of technical understanding, the void becomes filled with political nonsense, contrived power and authority, driven in large part by fear of technical threats, leading to the scrum bum (aka master) to become overly adverserial.

[@ScrumMastered]

@elderdragon5657, that's no fun. I truly believe that you don't have to be technical but you still must take your time to learn the technical terms. Ok, I can't write code, but I understand what developers in my teams are doing and I speak the same language. That's a pre-requisite for the job, I think. It's all industry dependent. If you are a Scrum Master in a non-tech environment, say in a logistics team in a food industry, you need to understand the processes of this particular team, which will mean you probably need to learn some logistics. If you are a Scrum Master in a game development team, you need to understand all aspects of work involved in it. Ok, you won't be able to do the job itself, but you need to know what it looks like and what challenges team members are facing. You need to know the terminology.

[@OldManTricky]

Well summarised and this video should be used for businesses who fear change and who lack good practice.

[@ScrumMastered]

I think it all comes down to specific people who don't want to change the way they do things.

[@toyeseoyedokun5676]

Very informative ! Are you on Udemy?

[@ScrumMastered]

No, but I have an online course Fundamentals of Agile. You can find it on my website at ScrumMastered.com

[@venukafonseka1901]

Good stuff. another technical debt: not complying with the code coverage until closer to the release dates.

[@ScrumMastered]

Ah, yes. Good one!