When organizations start exploring how to hire data scientists, they often narrow their focus to technical skills and forget about the importance of soft skills. For example, a candidate’s proficiency with statistical analysis and programming languages is valuable and contributes to the candidate’s overall score.
Still, their ability to communicate findings and collaborate with others is equally important. This is especially true in healthcare, where data scientists work in teams to solve complex problems. A Scrum Master, for instance, may facilitate onboarding new data scientists to an agile team.
Healthcare organizations can allow their teams and innovative data management practices to improve patient outcomes by understanding how to hire data scientists. This guide will cover scrum master skills and how they relate to hiring the right data scientists for your organization.
Azulity’s provider credentialing services can help your organization achieve its data management goals by streamlining the onboarding process for healthcare data scientists and other skilled professionals.
Roles and Responsibilities of a Scrum Master Skills
What Does a Scrum Master Do?
A scrum master is a key part of any scrum team, responsible for upholding scrum practices and helping the team perform at its highest level. Scrum masters do this by facilitating scrum events, teaching the team about scrum, and removing any obstacles that might impede the team’s progress. As the scrum guide says, “The scrum master is a servant leader for the scrum team.” The scrum master helps the team to organize themselves and work autonomously without relying on external support.
While this role is often confused with the project manager’s, the two are very different. A scrum master does not manage the team or the work but helps the team organize themselves. A scrum master may be called on to support other teams or even the broader organization, helping them understand and implement scrum. The scrum master’s ultimate goal is to support the team in delivering value to the business and its customers.
The Scrum Master’s Role Before a Sprint Starts
Before a sprint starts, the scrum master helps prepare the team for the upcoming work. This involves organizing the sprint planning meeting and ensuring team members understand their roles and responsibilities. In addition to facilitating the meeting, the scrum master helps to create a suitable environment for the team to work in. This includes:
- Ensuring the team has a well-defined product backlog with appropriately detailed and estimated items.
- Helping to remove external factors that may disrupt the team’s sprint, such as excessive team dependencies on outside groups or incomplete or unclear user stories.
- Coaching the team on agile and scrum practices, encouraging them to self-organize and establish their goals for the sprint.
The Scrum Master’s Role During a Sprint
Once a sprint begins, the scrum master helps the team remain on track. They facilitate scrum events, remove obstacles, and coach the team on agile and scrum practices. Here are some specific activities a scrum master may perform during a sprint
Daily standups
Facilitate daily standups (or the daily scrum) as needed.
Iteration/sprint planning meetings
Protect the team from over-committing and scope creep. Aid in estimation and sub-task creation.
Sprint reviews
Participate in the meeting and capture feedback.
Retrospectives
Note areas for improvement and action items for future sprints.
Board administration
Work as the administrator of the scrum board. Ensure that cards are current and that scrum tools like Jira work well.
1 on 1s
Meet individually with team members and stakeholders as needed. Iron out team disagreements about processes and work styles. Many scrum practitioners oppose 1on1, believing these communications should happen during standups. However, new teams often prefer regular face-to-face interactions with specific team members. The scrum master may decide that these individual interactions are crucial for team development and getting to know one another.
Internal Consulting
Scrum masters should consult with team members and internal stakeholders on how best to work with the Scrum team.
Reporting
Regularly analyze burndown charts and other portfolio planning tools to understand what gets built and at what cadence.
Blockers
The scrum master aids the team by eliminating external blockers and managing internal roadblocks through process or workflow improvements.
Busy work
If the scrum team isn’t functioning as well as it could be, that’s the scrum master’s problem. Maybe that means fixing broken computers, moving desks around, or adjusting the thermostat. Scrum masters should be comfortable doing just about anything to help their team and should not shy away from grabbing coffee, providing snacks, or adjusting the thermostat if that’s what the team needs.
Related Reading
- Scrum Master Roles and Responsibilities
- What to Look for When Hiring a Project Manager
- Solution Architect Roles and Responsibilities
- How to Hire a Project Manager
- Project Executive vs Project Manager
- Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring Developers
- What to Ask When Hiring a Data Scientist
13 Essential Scrum Master Skills Needed to Get Hired
1. Building Knowledge of Scrum
A competent Scrum Master must understand the framework’s concepts and terminology. To get there, they need to study Scrum’s pillars and values. Three pillars of Scrum exist: adaptation, transparency, and inspection. The framework has five values: respect, courage, openness, commitment, and focus. Scrum competency requires knowledge of these concepts and activities: daily Scrum, the definition of done, development team, increment, product backlog, product owner, Sprint, sprint retrospective, sprint review, and timeboxing.
2. Execution of Scrum
Scrum Masters must demonstrate competency with the framework. A certification proves that you understand Scrum and can apply it in real-world scenarios. Choose a certification path based on your knowledge level and job. The basic certification covers the fundamentals of the Scrum framework. An experienced Scrum Master may want to pursue advanced certification to test their abilities to apply skills to more complex projects and organizations. Some certification organizations require applicants to take a course before the exam.
The certification exams from the two dominant certifiers require passing grades to obtain the certification. CSM from the Scrum Alliance requires 74% (37 out of 50 answers correct), while the PSM from Scrum.org requires 85% (68 of 80 answers correct). Both exams run for 1 hour. Some Scrum Master certifications expire. Check whether your company supports training classes under its continuing education program. If you already hold a basic Scrum Master certification, consider an advanced certification.
3. Project Management
Your project management skills can include budget allocation, scope analysis, and feasibility testing to ensure successful software builds. Strategic planning, policy development, scheduling, and reporting to senior and executive managers are also essential aspects of the skills you need to develop in project management. Learning and applying best practices for managing multiple projects and Scrum teams in technical environments is also essential. They may also acquire knowledge of the Agile methodology, which helps organize and plan productive iterative tasks in project management.
4. Leadership
The Scrum Master is the glue between the product owner and the development team. The relationship between the Scrum Master and the product owner is key to success. The product owner is responsible for creating user stories. Then, the entire Scrum team reviews these stories to finalize, estimate, and prioritize them. The Scrum Master ensures the development team fully supports story refinement called backlog grooming. The product owner takes on product challenges and changes in feature prioritization.
To assist the product owner, the Scrum Master informs the development team of product changes. Scrum Masters should highlight changes affecting work in progress during a sprint. The Scrum Master helps the product owner by being a good leader. A Scrum Master: holds the Scrum team accountable to the defined sprint goals; implements effective product backlog management; helps the Scrum team understand story grooming and estimated product backlog items; arranges the product backlog to maximize value; and facilitates Scrum events.
Conflicts will arise in performing this service. A good leader is organized and communicates well. Scrum Masters must be accountable and build consensus throughout an organization. Work with the team every day to help members achieve sprint goals.
5. Design, Development, and Process Integration
Technical skills like software design and development, programming, and process integration are also necessary to take on the role of a Scrum leader. These leaders might focus on specific aspects of a project. Some may have strengths with technical concepts, while others might focus on the “end-product” vision. Many people also develop their skills in frameworks like Agile, Waterfall, and Kanban, which support the Scrum methodology. You can benefit from learning and applying these tools to Scrum planning and execution, and tools like these also make project documentation and management more efficient.
6. Collaboration
Scrum Masters’ responsibilities extend beyond their development teams. To remove impediments for their teams, Scrum Masters collaborate with stakeholders and other dev teams. Some Scrum experts say this interaction falls outside the traditional Scrum Master role, but it’s necessary work, and you’re the right person to do it. As a Scrum Master, they use leadership skills to collaborate across teams, negotiate schedules, and facilitate technical meetings.
7. Organizational Skills
Scrum leaders rely on exceptional organization and attention to detail and manage multiple deadlines, sprint cycles, Scrum roles, and project specifications. Your organizational skills are also essential to assigning team roles, scheduling Scrum meetings, and documenting changes to software products during each sprint cycle. Your ability to prioritize urgent tasks and manage your time effectively is also necessary as a Scrum leader.
8. Agile and Software Development Knowledge
At its core, Scrum helps software development teams build products adaptively. Technical knowledge of developing software in an Agile environment can help Scrum Masters move teams ahead with the proper tools and techniques. Scrum Masters should be familiar with the technical product under development and with the development tool suite.
A Scrum Master does not need to be able to write software. However, understanding the product’s technical features and use cases is essential to run the Scrum project effectively. Scrum Masters can even participate in end-to-end acceptance testing of the product.
9. Listening
To be a good leader, which starts with being a good listener, consider the servant leader model. Listening is a must-have Scrum Master skill. Pay close attention to daily standups, backlog meetings, sprint planning, team reviews, and retrospectives. Hear where issues arise, raise awareness, and lead the team to a resolution.
10. Critical Thinking Skills
Your ability to identify and create strategies to protect against risk is essential to leading successful Scrum development projects. Integrating solutions that support successful outcomes is another aspect of your critical thinking that employers look for when assigning the Scrum leader role. Solving technical problems and ensuring your team is aware of protocol changes are examples of how your critical thinking applies to this role.
11. Communication and Interpersonal Skills
Strong communication skills are transferable qualities that leadership roles require, including Scrum roles. Your verbal communication and listening skills can support your team and encourage open feedback loops, innovative developments, and creative ideas. Technical writing and documentation are also aspects of the role that require effective written communication as you give updates to project owners and senior managers.
Scrum leaders work closely with developers, programmers, and technicians to create and implement software designs. Therefore, your ability to interact with others and build relationships in the workplace is critical to your success in a leadership role. Developing your ability to understand others’ perspectives is also essential, as this creates open collaboration and support for teams working together to achieve goals.
12. Adaptability with Change
Many Scrum Masters fixate on following the framework. Instead, think of Scrum as a foundational tool rather than the goal—agile development centers upon the concept of change and the framework and processes necessary to manage change. So, the Scrum framework must adapt to support the team best. Every team executes Scrum ceremonies but works differently from others.
13. Risk Management
The Scrum Master should be knowledgeable in standard processes to manage risk. They can facilitate that process, from risk identification through mitigation and monitoring. Some risks are related to process, skills, or Technical debt. All projects accept some level of debt. However, during development, issues can arise that impediment tasks. These issues may result in risks that add to quality, feature, or UX debt. The Scrum Master helps to identify dangers and works with the development team to analyze, rank, and communicate them.
This skill helps the product owner and stakeholders make decisions to mitigate best or reduce the risk. A Scrum Master who learns, leads, listens, and applies their knowledge of processes and associated tools where needed is in the proper position to make the team run efficiently. These Scrum Master skills support rapid, predictable delivery at every iteration. And that kind of software delivery is ultimately why the team chose Scrum.
Azulity specializes in healthcare master data management and provider credentialing services, bringing proven expertise in implementing healthcare data solutions and credentialing across the US. Our comprehensive platform ensures consistent patient, provider, location, and claims data synchronization across all systems and departments.
Key features include healthcare MDM, provider MDM, reference data management, credentialing, and provider enrollment. We serve healthcare technology leaders – from CIOs and CDOs to VPs of data platforms and credentialing – helping them eliminate the costly problems of fragmented data systems. Book a call to learn more about our healthcare master data management services today!
How to Hire a Scrum Master
1. Use Azulity: Get Help From the Experts
Azulity specializes in healthcare master data management and provider credentialing services. They bring proven expertise in implementing healthcare data solutions and credentialing across the US. Their comprehensive platform ensures consistent patient, provider, location, and claims data synchronization across all systems and departments.
Key features include healthcare MDM, provider MDM, reference data management, credentialing, and provider enrollment. They serve healthcare technology leaders—from CIOs and CDOs to VPs of data platforms and credentialing—helping them eliminate the costly problems of fragmented data systems. Book a call to learn more about their healthcare master data management services today!
2. Write a Good Job Description
Once a candidate profile is ready, the next step is to capture that information in the job description to attract the right candidates. A well-structured job description can make all the difference in finding the perfect Scrum Master for your team.
Highlight key responsibilities and impact.
Clearly articulate the Scrum Master’s duties, such as facilitating scrum ceremonies and coaching teams. This sets clear expectations and demonstrates the role’s significance within your organization.
Balance technical skills with soft skills.
While it’s essential to mention knowledge of Scrum frameworks and Agile methodologies, don’t overlook the necessity of soft skills like communication and conflict resolution. A Scrum Master needs to foster collaboration among team members.
Showcase your company and role’s unique selling points
What makes your company a great place to work? Whether it’s a strong Agile culture, opportunities for career growth, or innovative projects, highlighting these aspects can attract candidates who align with your company values.
3. Look for Specific Keywords in the Resume
Resume screening is a key step in hiring Scrum Masters. It helps you quickly identify candidates with the right skills and experience before moving to interviews.
Ideal skills required for Scrum Master
When manually screening resumes, focus on key Scrum Master qualifications. Look for certifications like CSM or PSM, experience with Agile methodologies, and facilitation and team leadership skills. Scrum Master skills can guide your screening process. AI tools can streamline resume screening for Scrum Masters. Use large language models with custom prompts to analyze resumes based on your specific criteria. This approach can save time and ensure consistent evaluation across all applications.
Task
Screen resumes for the Scrum Master role
Input
Resumes
Output
For each resume, provide:
- Name
- Matching keywords
- Score (out of 10)
- Recommendation
- Shortlist (Yes, No, Maybe)
Rules
- Use ‘Maybe’ if unsure
- Keep recommendations brief
Keywords
- Certifications (CSM, PSM)
- Agile methodologies
- Scrum practices (Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-ups, Retrospectives)
- Facilitation skills
- [Agile tools](https://www.adaface.com/assessment-test/jira-software-cloud-test) (Jira, Trello) – Team leadership – Conflict resolution
4. Test Their Skills
Skills tests are a reliable way to evaluate the capabilities of potential Scrum Masters. They provide insights into the technical expertise and soft skills required for the role. Here are some recommended tests to consider when hiring a Scrum Master:
Scrum Master Test
Use the Scrum Master Test to measure candidates’ understanding of Scrum principles, roles, and ceremonies. This test ensures they have a firm grasp of the Scrum methodology, which is crucial for guiding teams effectively.
Communication Test
Assertive communication is key for any Scrum Master. The Communication Test evaluates a candidate’s ability to convey ideas clearly and listen effectively, both essential for facilitating team collaboration.
Leadership Psychometric Test
Assess leadership qualities with the Leadership Psychometric Test. This test identifies candidates who can inspire and guide their team, a vital trait for any successful Scrum Master.
Problem-Solving Test
Scrum Masters must tackle challenges on the fly. The Problem Solving Test helps determine a candidate’s ability to think critically and find solutions under pressure.
Situational Judgement Test
Evaluate how candidates handle real-world situations with the Situational Judgement Test. This test presents scenarios where candidates must choose the best course of action, reflecting their practical decision-making skills.
5. Structure the Interview the Stage
After candidates pass initial skills tests, conducting technical interviews to assess their hard skills in depth is crucial. While skills tests help filter out unfit candidates, technical interviews are key to identifying the best fit for the Scrum Master role. Let’s explore some practical interview questions to evaluate Scrum Master candidates.
Consider asking
‘How do you handle conflicts within a Scrum team?’, ‘Describe your experience with sprint planning and retrospectives,’ ‘How do you ensure the team adheres to Scrum principles?’, ‘What metrics do you use to measure a team’s progress?’ and ‘How do you facilitate communication between the team and stakeholders?’. These questions help assess the candidate’s practical experience, problem-solving abilities, and understanding of Scrum methodologies.
Where to Find a Scrum Master for Hiring
1. Job Portals: Where the Action Is
Use popular job platforms like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed, or Monster to post job openings and search for Scrum Master profiles. You can specify the required Scrum Master skills in the job description, including certifications (e.g., CSM, PSM), experience, and domain knowledge.
2. Freelance Platforms: The Gig Economy
Websites like Upwork, Toptal, and Fiverr have professionals offering Scrum Master services freelance. Check profiles, reviews, and past project experience before hiring.
3. Professional Networks: Get Social
Post job opportunities in LinkedIn groups and communities focused on Agile practices, such as:
- Scrum Alliance Community
- Agile Practitioners Network
Engage with candidates who are actively contributing to Agile discussions.
4. Specialized Recruitment Agencies: Find a Hiring Partner
Partner with agencies specializing in Agile and tech roles, such as TEKsystems or Agile Recruitment. They have access to a pool of pre-vetted Scrum Master candidates.
5. Certifying Bodies and Training Centers: Go to the Source
Contact organizations like Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, or Scaled Agile, as they often have job boards or alumni networks. Reach out to Agile training centers for recommendations from their recent batches.
6. Meetups and Conferences: Get Out There
Attend Agile conferences (e.g., Agile Alliance events) or local Scrum meetups—network with professionals already practicing Agile methodologies.
7. Referrals: Ask Around
Ask your existing team members, colleagues, or connections for referrals. Many experienced Scrum Masters are found through trusted recommendations.
8. Internal Candidates: Look Within
Look for employees within your organization who show leadership potential and knowledge of Agile practices. Consider training them to take on the Scrum Master role.
9. Online Communities: The More the Merrier
Platforms like Stack Overflow, Reddit (r/scrum or r/agile), and Agile-related forums can help identify active and knowledgeable professionals.
10. Job Ads on Agile-Specific Websites: Get Targeted
Post openings on specialized Agile job boards such as:
- AgileCareers (by Scrum Alliance)
- We Work Remotely (for remote Scrum Masters)
- AgileJobBoard
Related Reading
- Questions to Ask When Hiring a Programmer
- Hiring Dedicated Developers vs In-House Developers: What Is Better?
- Scrum Master vs Project Manager
- How to Hire a Software Developer
- Data Architect Vs Data Engineer
- How to Hire Programmers for a Startup
- Quality Analyst Interview Questions
- Data Architect Roles and Responsibilities
- Data Analyst Skills Needed
- Skills Required for Project Manager
- Quality Analyst Skills
- Data Architect Skills
Book a Call to Learn More About Our Provider Credentialing Services
Hiring a data scientist to help with healthcare master data management projects can significantly advance your organization’s efforts to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs. However, finding the right expert with experience in your specific area of need is essential. For instance, if your organization struggles with provider data, look for a data scientist with a specialized background in managing, analyzing, and interpreting healthcare provider data.
This expert should understand the challenges of fragmented provider data and how it impacts operational efficiencies and quality of care. Moreover, they should have experience with data solutions targeting healthcare provider data to help your organization eliminate the problems. In short, you want to find a data scientist to help your organization achieve its specific goal and improve your healthcare master data management capabilities.
Narrowing Your Focus: Skills, Tools, and Qualifications
Before you begin the hiring process, take the time to narrow your focus. What exactly do you need? Aim to identify specific skills, tools, and qualifications that will help you reach your goals. For example, if your organization is dealing with high volumes of fragmented patient data, you may need to hire a data scientist with expertise in healthcare MDM.
On the other hand, hire a data scientist with provider data and healthcare analytics skills to improve operational efficiencies related to healthcare credentialing. Establishing a focused set of criteria to help you target the right candidates will make the hiring process smoother and more successful.