How to write the right scrum master job description? Does your company need to make the job description for this role? This article will help you to describe a scrum master job description.
Define the scrum master job description
Defining the scrum master job description is not always easy. If you describe it incorrectly, this will have significant consequences:
- attract bad profiles
- risk to have mixed roles
Before defining this scrum master job description, don’t forget that people will check different criteria before to contact you.
The criteria that are looked at are:
- Profile title
- job description
- salary / ADR
- the company and its reputation for agility
- location
Certain criteria will be linked to your context and cannot be modified.
Non-modifiable criteria
The location of the mission may be eliminatory
If you have a business in a big city like New York, you are much more likely to attract the profiles than in the suburbs.
Some companies have difficulty filling their workforce despite higher salary/ADR cause of location.
Agile reputation of the company
In the world of agility, the agile reputation of the company is also a real selection criterion. Some companies are automatically excluded from a number of agilists.
Companies that put “SAFe” forward, will have a positive impact on one part of the community and a negative impact on another part of the community. However, if the company is also under the SAFe framework, it is important to mention it.
Workable criteria
Certain criteria that can make the difference will be in your hands. It is therefore strongly advised to work well on these criteria on which the company can make the difference especially when the company have a bad location and/or a bad agile reputation.
Profile title
For starters, I can only advise you to avoid writing titles that mix roles:
- scrum master / project manager
- scrum master / agile coach
- developer / scrum master
profile scrum master / project manager
This first title is probably the worst. No good scrum master will respond to your job proposition because they don’t like to mix a role of project manager and a role of scrum master; it’s anti agile. The term “project manager” is shunned by good profiles because it implies that they cannot be really scrum master. In addition, it is possible that the goal is to attract project managers, not a real scrum master.
profile scrum master / agile coach
This second title attracted scrum masters who dream to become agile coach. But the agile coach profile is not the same price. You will have no real agile coach who will respond to your ads. However, it is true that despite this mix, you can potentially attract a good scrum master profile.
The problem with this mix is often to see that the job description is 100% scrum master. Helping the organization to acculturate around the scrum is one of the roles of a scrum master and not of an agile coach.
Some people start to reject this kind of job description that mix these two different roles. Because the promise to have an agile coach position is often a fake.
profile scrum master / lead dev
A bit like the first mix of profiles that I have proposed, this title will attract developers but never the scrum master. This title is often seen as a trap to attract the developers. And finally, this person will never become scrum master in this kind of position. Be careful, everybody now that this title is just a trap and your job description will not be attractive.
If you’re looking for good scrum masters, just forget this title; it never work!
Good description of the missions of the scrum master job description
Surprisingly, the written missions about scrum master that I see now on the professional social networks are better; there are probably the excellent agile coaches (or even experienced scrum masters) who help to write them.
Between two job ads, the experienced scrum master will favor the one that is fairer, although this will not be the only criterion.
And you have a great tool that gives you everything to write an excellent description of the scrum master job description: Scrum Master Responsibilities. Take it like reference! It will give you more chance to have experienced profiles.
Avoid expressions that are still too present and that go against the role of scrum master:
- will do reporting
- technical leader of the team
It will be essential that the description really reflects the role that the future scrum master will have upon his arrival. A scrum master who discovers a reality very different from the promises of the description sheet will very quickly be demotivated … A demotivated scrum master will destabilize the whole team.
My last advice: write the good salary!,Now, it’s just a dream to think you will have a cheap good scrum master.
Conclusion the scrum master job description
I hope this article on the scrum master job description will allow you to attract the profiles that really meet your expectations. By following all of the tips in this article, you will be more confortable to attract the scrum master profile you expect.
If you have any additional questions about the scrum master job description, don’t hesitate to ask me in the comments. If you have other tips for attracting a scrum master job description, please also share them in the comments.
Lien utile : scrum master (in french)
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