What’s the number 1 skill needed for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches in 2024?
I've been speaking with a lot of colleagues and clients lately about the value of a scrum master or agile coach, maybe it's a sign of the times, the perceived state of agile or just a poor economy, but pretty much everyone agreed on the same skill needed to stand out and add true value.
So, what is it?
A total grasp of AI? Able to expertly engineer your own prompts? Nope.
A deep and thorough understanding of agile techniques and practices, balancing theory with real world experience? Nope.
It's simply to be self-measuring, proving how you add value, being able to demonstrate it ‘and’ being able to do this before being hired at interview.
Organisations are tired of not seeing tangible visible value being delivered from their past experience of SMs and ACs. They want to be sure that you're going to be able to do this and provide real value.
So how can you show this?
Well, first don't focus on intangible things that can't easily be quantified. So drop all the usual agile lingo, don't talk about mindsets, culture, self-management and all the rest.
I know it might go against your beliefs and principles but people just don't want to hear about things you can't demonstrate and prove and crucially that doesn't directly lead to visible value.
Plus they've heard it all before so you'll just lose credibility.
Focus on where you've tangibly delivered value, that you can quantify, such as through your coaching on data driven metrics you helped the team reduce their cycle time by 20% resulting in a faster time to market.
But you’ll need evidence of this, anyone can say this, it's another thing to prove it. One way is to get LinkedIn recommendations from your previous boss or stakeholder.
So, maintain great relationships in your current role!
Now the most important thing is to focus on is value and how you deliver it.
Although you're a Scrum Master, Scrum itself is not your mission. In fact Scrum is not always going to be the best framework, sometimes it might be Kanban or some other agile way of working, sometimes it will actually be waterfall and there's no harm in stating this, it shows you have objectivity.
But what you want to make crystal clear is that no matter what your primary driver your objective is customer value, team value, product value and of course business value, these will always be a constant.
And how do you prove value? Through metrics or KPIs. Now don't be afraid of this virtually every role I can think of is measured in some way.
Management like measurement and so will the interviewer.
Check out my video ‘The number one skill needed for Scrum Masters’ to find out what 4 KPIs you need measure yourself against when taking on a new role in order to determine if you’re being effective or not and gain credibility with the employer.
They. Will. Love. It.