What’s The Difference Between A Scrum Master And A SAFe® Scrum Master?

Do any of you have the below-mentioned questions in mind?

1. Do Scrum Master and SAFe Scrum Master (SSM) are the same or different?
2. Are the two different names in different contexts?
3. Is SSM, an SM with additional scaling responsibilities?
4. Let’s look at the differences between Scrum Master and SAFe Scrum Master (Scrum Master Scrum Framework).

5. If you have just begun your agile journey, Scrum Master Certification takes you in. To advance your agile career, check more on SAFe® Scrum Master Certification.

Scrum Master In General,

Scrum masters are responsible for managing, organizing, and facilitating the Scrum process. As an SM, you need to have the ability to coach and mentor team members, foster collaboration between teams, and help with organizational strategies.

The goal of scrum masters is to release fast and ensure high-quality software. They do this by managing the development process with business stakeholders or customer representatives in order to create a plan that contains tasks that can be accomplished within a sprint (or time frame) while providing feedback on the process.

SM Role In SAFe® & Scrum

SAFe® describes Scrum Master’s role as a service leader for the Agile development team, helping the team train various systems and methodologies such as Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), Kanban, and SAFe® to ensure that the agreed Agile process works properly. followed. So, by default, this means that the Scrum Master should have more tools in the SAFe® framework Toolkit than just Scrum.

You might feel helpful by reading this article: What does scrum master do?

In the Scrum Framework, the SM takes accountability for configuring the Scrum as defined in the Scrum Manual, so adding other tools is optional. This is usually a good trait and Scrum Masters learn this aspect during their agile journey. From our experience, not all Scrum Masters go on the same journey, and not all SMs understand the need for these additional skills. And often these Scrum masters work to improve the performance of a Scrum team.

Read this article to know more in detail about the differences between scrum master and SAFe® Scrum Master

Lean-Agile Understanding

SAFe® combines the principles of Lean and Agile and makes them very clear. Consequently, the SAFe® Scrum Master (SSM) must also follow the rules when working in the SAFe® workplace. The SSM should enable the Agile team to host SAFe® and learn different Lean methods and tools to enhance the value stream in their Agile development teams.

Read the article to more about the value stream management in SAFe.

The Scrum Master (SM) focuses only on the framework ‘Scrum’. They allow teams to take responsibility for Scrum artifacts, responsibilities, and events. They may not know the core principles and values because they are familiar with the Scrum guide and the Agile Manifesto for Software Development. We have seen in the last session that 80% of participants were unaware of the Agile Manifesto and 50% had never read a Scrum guide.

Event Facilitation

SAFe® organizes many program-level events and involves all Agile Release Train teams such as Program Increment planning. The SSM now needs to handle time zones, dependencies, and other uncertainties across multiple agile teams. While the agile development team is responsible for removing dependencies, the SM must manage them. The SAFe® Scrum Master should also help the agile team prepare for other software events such as system I&A, System demos, problem-solving workshops, and more.

Conclusion

Finally, whether it’s just a Scrum Master (SM) or SAFe® Scrum Master (SSM), different skills, characteristics, and experience are required to be effective. Basically, both tasks are aimed at making their teams stronger and more effective. However, SAFe® provides some foundational guidelines for starting the journey, unlike Scrum which leaves some of the HOW to be investigated by one person.

Know more about Scrum Certification and Scaled Agile Certification based on the framework used in your organization and your career goals

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