Having recently begun acting as Scrum Master for an 8 developer off-site team with with several hundred active project members, I thought it a wise idea to more formally read up on the traits and aspects that make a Scrum Master great (or even good for that matter). Before I get into my personal reflection on the book, let’s talk about the book itself.
Scrum Mastery is a relatively short book, weighing in around 280 pages (including the index and appendices). The book is a fairly quick read, well divided into the various aspects that great Scrum Masters exhibit with helpful stories, cautionary tales and hints for improvement. The various sub-chapter sub-titles do a good job of summarizing the chapters (helpful for me as someone who will read these as a refresher months later), and the book as a whole is succinct and insightful.
While there were not many surprises contained in the book, I feel that there was definite value in reading a more formalized version of the behaviors I have seen in other Scrum Masters and tried to exhibit myself. Additionally, the book structures itself in a way conducive towards personal enhancement and iterative improvement. I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in becoming a scrum master, or just being a better one. I certainly hope to make myself a better scrum master having read this book.
