Scrum Master Job Description

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Do you want to recruit a great Scrum Master?  Or perhaps you want to clarify roles and responsibilities in agile delivery?

Today I’m giving away a Scrum Master job description template for you to download.

In a number of my roles I have either set up Scrum Teams from scratch or have recruited a Scrum Master as my replacement (or both). So I figure I’ve had a few cracks at this and I might be saving someone else time.

This Scrum Master job description is quite generic, with intended use of an IT software delivery team.  It is deliberately taken as much as possible, word for word from The Scrum Guide^TM.

To this end I happily acknowledge that a lot of the copyright for the Scrum Master job description (particularly in the Duties & Responsibilities and Role Objective sections) is fittingly attributed to authors Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland via ©2016 Scrum.Org and ScrumInc for The Scrum Guide^TM. It is used under the Attribution Share-Alike license of Creative Commons.

At the time of posting the Scrum Master job description uses the latest version from July 2016.

Two formats of the same document are available to instantly download:
a) Microsoft Word in .docx format so that you can easily edit to make it your own; and
b) .pdf format for any reader like Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Click here to download Scrum Master job description free in .docx format.

Click here to download Scrum Master job description free in .pdf format.

A few helpful notes:

• Where you see <wordinside> this means you delete the arrows and words inside to replace it with customised content to your circumstances
• Essential experience and skills on page two are numbered from highest priority to lowest priority. These essentials have the highest weighting.  So above all else I suggest favouring candidates that meet these with the one essential attribute and one essential qualification.
• The desirable or nice to have skills are just a bonus. All other things being equal, I wouldn’t take someone with all of these if they didn’t have the essentials.
• Paper pages are A4 size, so if you are from outside Australia, you may like to adjust this.
• This is not for an Iteration Manager. I’ve not recruited for this agile delivery role, even though there are some similarities.
• Note that technical skills are of very little importance. A great facilitator with Scrum experience will do 10 times a better job than an inexperienced Scrum Master with poor facilitation skills even though they have lots of technical expertise like detailed knowledge of coding.

I use this Scrum Master job description template as a foundation and then add where necessary. Some other areas of responsibility that are not covered in The Scrum Guide^TM may include:

• Responsible for leading the recruitment and selection of Scrum Team members based on capability gaps, values and personality fit for a self-organising, cross-functional team. This does not necessarily mean a Scrum Master makes the final decision on their own, the Scrum Team should collaborate all through the process.
• Responsible for leading and facilitating the professional development of Scrum Team members. This does not mean the Scrum Master has to be the sole source of agile nor technical training, instead they can help Scrum Team members get on the job training using pair work with others or they can help to identify external courses they can attend.

Contact me here if you would like to hire an awesome Scrum Master in Sydney, Australia – click here to check out my Scrum Master contracting services offered.