Helping Scrum Masters Improve: What would be on your Scrum Master Canvas?

I see a lot of Scrum Masters who focus on the wrong things. I was having some conversations with some Scrum trainers recently, and the conversation inspired an idea in me: The Scrum Master Canvas.

The Scrum Master Canvas

The Scrum Master Canvas, similar to the Business Model Canvas that we teach in our Product Owner courses, focuses on the things that a Scrum Master should be thinking about, in order to help her team get better at delivering more value, sooner.

So, I’ve started with some initial section ideas that might be useful to have on such a canvas:

• “Long term Impediments”
• “Short term Impediments”
• Service to the Organization
  • “What are my next steps in coaching the organization to get more benefits from Scrum?”
  • “Which audiences require the different Coaching Stances?” (A table with “audience” and “coaching stance” column headers)
  • “What is on the radar of the wider Scrum Master Community of Practice?”
  • “Organizations (and sometimes me!) tend to incorrectly assign duties to the Scrum Master. What are my next steps in re-focusing those duties to where they really should be directed in Scrum?”
• Service to the Development Team
  • “What are my next steps in helping the Dev Team become more Self Organizing so I can ‘Let the Team Decide’?”
  • “What is on my Dev Team’s Improvement Backlog right now?”
  • “What are my Dev Team’s next steps for achieving a higher degree of technical excellence?” (A table with “Next Steps” and “How can I support that?” as column headers)
  • “What things should I NOT do, so that the Scrum Team can become more Self Organizing?”
  • “What are my next steps in teaching/coaching the Dev Team to understand and enact Scrum?”
• Service to the Product Owner
  • “What are my next steps in helping the Product Owner to understand and enact Scrum and associated Agile techniques (User Stories, etc)?”
  • “What are my next steps in teaching/coaching the Product Owner to optimize value?”
• Service to myself, the Scrum Master
  • “In order to help my organization grow its’ Agility, what are my next steps for me learning and self improvement?”
  • “Am I working at a sustainable pace? Do I need to coach others on what that means?”
  • “What things should I NOT do, so that the Scrum Team can become more Self Organizing” (repeated for emphasis!)
  • “What else do I need to focus on, that’s not covered in a different section?”

The Scrum Master would initially create this canvas, put it on a rather large piece of paper (Information Radiator!), and likely hang it in their office in a place that is highly visible to those who walk by. In this way, in addition to focusing the Scrum Master on their role, it would also educate others in the organization on what a Scrum Master should focus on. Often times the wider organization also encourages the Scrum Master to focus on the wrong things. Maybe having this canvas would help them change their expectations of the Scrum Master, too. Anyway, you get the idea.

The Scrum Master would also probably want to schedule a calendar reminder, say every Sprint or so, to review their Canvas, edit it, and make sure they are staying on track. Then, maybe another set of calendar reminders every month or every quarter, to create a fresh copy of the canvas.

For a high quality class that focuses exclusively on the Scrum Master role, see our Professional Scrum Master class and contact us if you’re interested in one.

So, what would be on your Scrum Master Canvas?