Hey Developers Scrum Masters !

Recently, I came across a couple of Reddit discussions about Scrum Masters as a profession. A recurring opinion seemed to be that 9 out of 10 Scrum Masters are useless, while the remaining 1 out of 10 are worth their weight in gold.

That got me thinking: What makes the difference? I'm particularly interested in the 10% who are worth their weight in gold. I'd love to hear concrete (GOOD!!!) examples, (GOOD!!) experiences, and (GOOD!!!) lessons learned rather than just general Scrum theory.

I'll list the best examples from this discussion here:

No place in this discussion for:

- Theories about what Scrum Masters should do. I want to hear about concrete things your Scrum Master actually did that worked out great for your team

- Please no tips from Scrum Masters themselves — I'd particularly like to hear from developers who had a genuinely great Scrum Master

- Please no rants about bad examples - This is no therapy session !

Scrum master here, first time running one of these remote. team of 9 across 3 timezones, we want to map how a ticket goes from idea to production bc everything feels slow and nobody agrees why

in person id just use a wall and stickies. remote last time we tried a shared doc and it was me typing while 8 cameras stared at me. not doing that again
any tips on format, how long to run it how to stop the loudest person from mapping the whole thing themselves

One question on something I would like to clear up. I know if there are multiple scrum teams working on the same product they must share the same DoD.

My question is since teams are allowed to add to the DoDif the criteria is stricter, would separate teams be able to add their own criteria? Would they have to share this with the other teams? Would all the teams have to meet so they can decide on this as a whole?

Thanks for any feedback

Hello, I want to try to take the PSM I in the next future. I've been reading up on tips to prepare for the exam and, while before I was thinking I was ready, now I'm doubting myself.

I'm consistently scoring 100% on the open assessment on Scrum.org, but is this sufficient? Is the open assessment a true representation of the exam?

I've tried taking other mock exams but they are either not up to date or I get the feeling that the questions are not well constructed and are just making me doubt of concepts I think I know. The threads on Reddit are making me questions the real difficulty of the test, I don't want to take it and realize the questions are 100% more difficult than the ones on the open assessment.

Any tips are welcome so I don't waste my money 😄

Hi r/scrum! I’m building Skrüm, an open-source app for running team sessions, and I’d like feedback from people who facilitate them.

📝 For a retrospective, you pick from 52 built-in templates or create your own. The session moves through writing cards, grouping related topics, voting, discussion, and deciding on actions. Cards can be anonymous, and guests can join through a link.

Each action can have an owner, a due date, and reminders. The team dashboard keeps those actions alongside recent sessions, so there’s somewhere to check what happened between retros.

🃏 For refinement, there’s planning poker with custom decks and issue-tracker imports. The team reveals its estimates and can discuss the differences before settling on an estimate.

There are also shared whiteboards and surveys for team pulse, health checks, or a quick question.

🎲 For opening a session, you can choose from eight icebreakers: Draw & Guess, Sprint in one GIF, Hangman, Decoded, Two truths and a lie, Mood weather, Guess who?, and Quick question.

Configured integrations with Jira, Linear and GitHub let you export actions, sync their statuses and write planning poker estimates back to the source, subject to the integration’s settings and supported fields. In-app and email notifications cover action reminders and retrospective recaps, according to your preferences.

You can host Skrüm yourself. It’s available in English, French, Spanish, and German and is licensed under AGPL-3.0-or-later.

I’m the developer. I’d like to find teams willing to try it for an actual retrospective or refinement session. What would you need before doing that? I’m especially interested in the facilitator’s experience: moving between phases, including guests, and keeping the agreed actions useful afterwards.

🌐 Product tour and features: https://arnaud-ritti.github.io/skrum/

Repository, screenshots, and installation instructions: https://github.com/arnaud-ritti/skrum

Hi everyone,

I'm from Germany, and maybe this is just a matter of perspective, but there's something I genuinely don't understand.

Why does it seem like so many Scrum Master positions are advertised as freelance roles rather than permanent positions within a company?

Wouldn't a Scrum Master be able to provide more value by being an integral part of the team(s) and the organization?

Sure, there's always the risk of becoming blind to certain problems when you've been part of an organization for too long, especially if you don't regularly reflect on your own work.

But isn't helping teams and organizations improve something that benefits from long-term involvement?

There's another thing I don't understand: What's the point of bringing in a Scrum Master for just two to six months?

I understand hiring freelancers to cover parental leave, temporary absences, or unexpected staffing shortages. That makes sense to me. But what about responsibilities that are expected to continue well beyond a few months?

Whether we're developing software or working on a particular tool or product, why would we want to break up the team after such a short time?

Why not move the Scrum Master, along with the Developers, to the next project?

A new project brings new unknowns, new uncertainties, and new challenges. But at least the team already knows how to work together. Isn't that an advantage in itself?

And yes, there's also a personal reason why I'm asking.

I'm looking for a permanent, full-time position as a Scrum Master. I have no idea how to acquire clients, market myself, or run a freelance business. Hell, even writing job applications is difficult enough for me.

And starting a freelance business isn't just about finding clients. There are legal requirements, administrative responsibilities, and plenty of things I don't even know I need to consider.

I want to work with teams, help them grow, and support organizational improvements. I don't want to spend my time trying to sell myself to the next client.

So I'm genuinely curious: Why do companies seem to prefer hiring freelance Scrum Masters instead of employing them directly? What am I missing?

Hey all.
So we're kinda stuck dealing with the same project setup spread across two separate Jira instances. One is our main, another we inherited when we absorbed another team, plus a sandbox where we're always testing things out. They all started identical, but over time they fell out of sync, and if anyone wanted to update something they just jumped in and did it whenever they happened to be logged in at the moment. And now none of the statuses of fields align.
What I really want to do is keep one project as our main reference and copy its config straight over to the other instance, so I don't have to retype the screens and waste a whole afternoon on manual work. So if anyone's got a way to do this, I'm all ears.

I kept everything: declined requests stay in the backlog with the reason, so the same ask is not re-argued next quarter. Not sure that beats closing them and letting the real ones come back. Has pruning worked for anyone?

Hi,

One of my hobbies is to create free escape rooms and so far I have created 5, already been played over 14k times. I will not tell what my page is because of the /scrum rules.

I'm working on a virtual escape room called the "Scrum Escape Room" and while doing so I'm trying to crawl into the skin of a team, but not sure on some crucial aspects.

The overall goal of the (free) Escape Room is to have fun with your team solving a bunch of puzzles while learning basics of Scrum. It also emphasizes on the roles people play in real life vs the roles(dev/PO/SM) they have within the team. And much more that can be achieved like; practice collaboration, improve communication, experience roles/responsibilities, set priorities, problemsolving skils, etc. etc.

The crucial aspects - I would like to request some feedback from you (of if you can answer 1 question that would be helpful):

1. How likely is it that you play a Scrum Escape Room with your team?
2. Would you play such a room digital only(screen only, remote possibilities), or digital in combination with prints(face to face)?
3. One central screen, or everyone works on his/her own screen? Or one central screen and puzzles on telephone (QR)
4. What would make you choose to play (or not to play) a scrum escape room whit your team?
5. Would you want a debrief/reflection at the end? what would you expect from it?
6. What level of scrum knowledge should the game assume? (no knowledge, basis knowledge, experienced)

Any thoughts on this would be really helpful!!

Thanks in advance!

Atlassian starts by asking developers what’s broken, not by buying the latest tool.

What is the best way to navigate a 90-day notice period? This is really reducing my chances of getting hired. I need suggestions urgently. Kindly share your thoughts.

Is this the scrum team or the developers? I thought it was the scrum team but the practice test I am taking says its the developers. I keep second guessing things because all these practice tests are giving me different answers.

I can score a 90 on the scrum.org quiz but get answers wrong on other quizzes that I feel are the right answer. At this point I feel I am just memorizing that quiz.

Do any of you have any reliable sources to study from for the PSM 1. I do fine on single answer questions but get tripped up on the 3 answer questions. I will get two right and one wrong. Any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hey guys, can you please share what are your study materials and test questions did you purchase for PSM 1 certification?

How was the exam?

We've been doing start-stop-continue for about a year and you could feel the energy dying. People stopped writing honest notes and just went through the motions. So we started rotating formats every sprint, and it genuinely changed things. Three formats that worked best for us:

1. Sailboat retro — the team imagines the sprint as a boat sailing toward an island (the goal). Wind = what pushed us forward, anchors = what slowed us down, rocks = risks ahead. The "rocks" quadrant is the magic — it forces the team to talk about the future, not just rehash the past. Best for: teams that need direction, not just reflection.

2. 4Ls (Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed for) — slightly more reflective than start-stop-continue, and "longed for" surfaces wishes people wouldn't say out loud otherwise. Best for: newer teams or after a rough sprint.

3. Start-Stop-Continue, but with a twist — we kept the format but added a rule: every "stop" needs a proposed alternative, and we vote on which "starts" actually get tried. Killed the complaint-session vibe. Best for: teams that want to keep it simple but need more accountability.

Two things that mattered more than the format itself: - Silent brainstorming first (10 min, no talking). Prevents the loudest voice from anchoring everyone. - Every retro ends with 1–3 actions that have an owner and a date. An action without an owner is a wish.

The format rotation is the real tip here — and honestly it all works on sticky notes too.

What's worked for your team? Always looking for format #4.