The Scrum Guide mentions that the Scrum Master (SM) is the one who promotes and supports Scrum in an enterprise. It is his/her responsibility to ensure that the team and every Stakeholder understand the methodologies, practices, theories, values, and rules of Scrum. A Scrum Master serves as the servant-leader of the team. The ultimate goal of Scrum Master is to drive and maximize value for the end-user while ensuring that people outside the Scrum Team understand which interactions are useful and not. He also coaches others on Scrum and is responsible for ensuring that Scrum Events like Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective, etc., are held.

As is evident, the Scrum Master has a very crucial role to play in a Scrum environment.  The Scrum Master facilitates everyone else to function within the Scrum framework. As per the ‘The State of Scrum,’ a Scrum Alliance report, about 89% of Agile users today use the Scrum framework. Of these, as many as 62% of the respondents mentioned that they have an in-house coach, while 86% said they followed the Scrum Events like Daily Scrum meetings with sincerity. All this shows how relevant and important the role of a Scrum Master is in an Agile enterprise.
 

What are the Scrum Master Responsibilities?
 

1.Ensure Scrum events are held as per the Scrum Guide
 

One of the main job responsibilities is to ensure that the main Scrum Events are held as required. 
 

• Sprint Planning, where the Sprint plan happens, and the Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring that the team does not over commit or under commit to the Sprint Goals. They also help the Product Owner in the creation of sub-tasks and estimation. 
   
• Facilitate the Daily Scrum, which is a stand-up time-boxed meeting and the Scrum Master needs to ensure that it is to the point and effective. 
   
• Sprint Review – the SM’s main role, in this case, is to take and give feedback to the team at the end of the Sprint.
   
• Sprint Retrospective is also held at the end of a Sprint and offers an opportunity to improvise to everyone concerned.
   

2.As a Scrum coach:
 

As a coach, the ScrumMaster ensures that the team can improve its performance and delivery standards. To make it happen, one becomes an impediment remover ensuring that every possible blockage on the way is removed and their team protected. They are also responsible for ensuring that the team is equipped with tools and resources to perform its job optimally. However, when it comes to resolving issues and problems on a day-to-day basis, the Scrum Master acts as a mere facilitator and only helps find the solution when the team is unable to do so.
 

3.Servant-Leader role
 

The Scrum Master acts as a facilitator, a servant leader, and ensures that they listen to the team, empathizes with them, and encourages teamwork better. They are also the one who keeps the team focussed and works as per the goals and agrees on rules by empowering the team and progressively leads them.
 

4. Protects the team from interferences from the outside
 

It is another critical role that the Scrum Master has to fulfill. Any external interference, be it from the management, Product Owner, Project Manager, or other Stakeholders, is warded off by the Scrum Master. They should have the ability to intercept and resolve the issue from getting flared up. 
 

5.Resolving internal conflicts
 

Any disagreements or conflicts within the team are handled and addressed by the Scrum Master. Their job is to ensure that the team members are compatible with one another; that they collaborate and work as a team and not in disputes. If there are such clashes, Scrum Master needs to step in and sort out the issue to the best of their capabilities.
 

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Conclusion
 

A Scrum Master’s responsibilities consist of many said and unsaid tasks and activities that they need to do the entire day. They have to do every other work that helps the Scrum team function at their optimal best and give their best performance. These are the people who have the ultimate responsibility for implementing Agile methods, and therefore, they play a big role in a Scrum environment.