Be an honest broker

- Have you ever had a manager who gave preference to a certain group? It's disheartening particularly when you're not in the preferred group. For this reason, it's precisely why being an honest broker is so important to be a great scrum master. What's an honest broker? Well, it's someone who is accepted by everyone where neutrality is important for the purpose of developing a solution without a preference for either party involved. Let's explore three characteristics of an honest broker. An honest broker provides balanced attention. As a scrum master, your time is spent where needed based upon helping the team achieve the best results each sprint. In this case, time is spent in a balanced fashion for both developers and product owners, the scrum team. No preference should be given to an individual or a functional group rather where the attention is needed based upon the circumstances keeping an eye toward the main goal, product success. A great scrum master acting as an honest broker encourages ideas to evolve toward a solution. In the world of improv, this is referred to as the art of the possible. Each player takes an approach of yes and rather than yes but. So when each idea is presented, everyone else on the team builds on that idea. As a scrum master who encourages ideas to evolve, you'll often keep the brainstorming process flowing by asking what else can we add to the idea? Drive toward the best idea. A great scrum master gives equal weight. An honest broker is neutral yet supportive of the ideas presented. Your input is biased towards building the best team. For example, let's think about when the product backlog is being refined during a sprint. Here are some questions an honest broker would ask. Does the product owner's voice get heard? Are her priorities being expressed to the team? Does the team have an opportunity to weigh in on those priorities? Are you doing a good job of bringing those voices together? A skill that cuts through each of these three characteristics is competent facilitation. It is your secret weapon to push forward through crucial conversations as an honest broker. As you consider these characteristics, think, are you an honest broker?