Coaching, Facilitation and Removing Impediments

Much of the Scrum Master's daily work is choosing the right stance. Teaching explains Scrum when people do not yet understand it. Coaching asks questions that help people find their own answers. Mentoring shares experience. Facilitating helps a group reach its goal in an event or discussion without deciding for them. A good Scrum Master moves between these stances depending on the team's maturity and the situation.

An impediment is anything that blocks the team's progress and that the team cannot easily resolve within its own self-management. The Scrum Master's job is to cause the removal of impediments — often by helping the team solve problems themselves, and by stepping in directly when something sits outside the team's reach, such as a dependency on another department, an organizational policy or a lack of access. Solving every problem for the team creates dependency and weakens self-management; ignoring impediments wastes the team's time.

Conflict inside the team is first the team's to work through. The Scrum Master facilitates and coaches, and only escalates or intervenes more directly when the team cannot resolve it and it is harming the team's effectiveness.

Study focus: in scenario questions, the strongest answer usually builds the team's own capability — coaching, facilitating or teaching — rather than the Scrum Master making the decision, assigning work or reporting on individuals.