Why Do Scrum Masters Get Paid so Much?

By Mukundan Bashyam

While the pandemic has put the world economy into a tailspin, there are some career paths that have seen an unprecedented increased in demand. Even as employment uncertainties are the new norm in the post Covid environment, a career as a Scrum Master has never been more sought after. Scrum Masters are in demand for their ability to navigate the waters of a volatile economy that presents emergent requirements on a daily basis. And Scrum Masters who are able to prove their expertise are paid top dollar by leading organizations worldwide. Companies all over the world are hiring Certified ScrumMasters as they are proven to deliver on challenging tasks faced by Agile teams. They have consistently shown that they can address complex issues that may crop up during the course of an Agile project, and are able to steer the tasks through to completion on time and within budget. CSMs have demonstrated, time and again, that they are well worth the high salaries paid. Survey Result A salary survey conducted by ‘Age of Product’ (Stephen Wolpers and Sumit Mehta) in 2017, included Scrum Masters from 13 countries around the world. The salary of a Certified ScrumMaster varies from country to country. Tabulated below are the annual salary ranges for three important countries: US: $100,001 – $125,000UK: $60,001 - $70,000India: $20,001 – $30,000The monthly income of a Certified Scrum Master can be listed as follows-US: $8333 – $10416UK: $5000 – $5833India: $1667 - $2500The weekly income of a Certified ScrumMaster, assuming 52 weeks for a year, is as given below:US: $1923 – $2403UK: $1154 – $1346India: $384 - $577The hourly salary of Certified Scrum Master (CSM) is:US: $48 – $60UK: $29 – $34India: $9.6 – $14The diagrammatic representation of the above data is as shown below:-Note: The figures mentioned here are in USD. Additional compensations for this job The certified scrum master can get additional compensations if he/she can take up a training for the community or get further certified in the line of his/her career. Companywise Salary ListingHere are some of the average salaries paid by the top companies to the certified Scrum Masters:TCS: 11,11,500/yearIBM: 16,07,000/yearAmdocs: 14,00,000/yearJP Morgan: 16,52,000/yearWhy do scrum masters get paid so much?According to Glassdoor, Scrum Masters are among the 25 highest paid professionals in America, and with good reason too! In an era in which the world of software development is in constant flux, the ability to keep everyone connected and communicating face to face is critical. A breakdown in communications leads to a breakdown in software. And a breakdown in software leads to a breakdown of the business. As companies are moving more towards Agile ways of working, they have realized that Scrum Master is the core role in making the team productive and self -organized and ensuring that the practices of Agile are diligently followed.Let’s take a look at the job profile and the tasks that a Certified ScrumMaster carries out.Job Profile of a Certified ScrumMasterBelow are the on-job responsibilities of the Certified Scrum Master (CSM):Essential Duties:Guiding the team and organization on how to use Agile/Scrum practices and values to delight customersGuiding the team on self-organizing to fill in the intentional gaps left in the Agile/Scrum frameworksAssessing the Scrum Maturity of the team and organization and coaching the team to higher levels of maturity, at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team and organizationRemoving impediments or guiding the team to remove impediments by finding the right personnel to remove the impedimentsBuilding a trusting and safe environment where problems can be raised without fear of blame retribution, or being judged, with an emphasis on healing and problem-solvingFacilitating the execution of work without coercion, assigning, or dictatingFacilitating discussion, decision making, and conflict resolutionAssisting with internal and external communication, improving transparency, and radiating informationSupporting and educating the Product Owner, especially on grooming and maintaining the product backlogProviding all support to the team using a servant leadership style whenever possible, and leading by example.Required Skills/Experience:Experience in playing the Scrum Master role for at least one year for a software development team that was diligently applying Scrum principles, practices, and theory.  (Adjust based on your necessity)Good skills and knowledge of servant leadership, facilitation, situational awareness, conflict resolution, continual improvement, empowerment, and increasing transparencyKnowledge of various well-documented patterns and techniques for filling in the intentional gaps left in the Scrum approach (example: numerous Burndown technologies, various Retrospective formats, handling bugs, etc.)Preferred Skills/Experience (Any of these is a plus)Experience is playing the Scrum Master role for at least two years for a software development team that was diligently applying Scrum principles, practices, and theory. (Adjust based on your necessity)Knowledge of other Agile approaches: XP, Kanban, Crystal, FDD, etc.Awareness and experience with widely successful Agile techniques: User Stories, ATDD, TDD, Continuous Integration, Continuous Testing, Pairing, Automated Testing, Agile Games.Applicable knowledge of the technologies used by the team.Excellent communication and mentoring skills.Tasks of the Certified Scrum MasterHelping the Development Team to create high-value productsCoaching the Development Team in self-organization and cross-functionalityRemoving impediments to the Development Team’s progressFacilitating Scrum events as requested or neededCoaching the Development Team in organizational environments in which Scrum is not yet fully adopted and understoodEnsuring that goals, scope, and product domain are understood by everyone on the Scrum Team as well as possibleFinding techniques for effective Product Backlog managementHelping the Scrum Team understand the need for clear and concise Product Backlog items.Understanding product planning in an empirical environment.The Truth About Job Titles In ScrumCompanies that Prefer to Hire Certified ScrumMastersAccording to the Scrum Guides, “Scrum has been adopted by a vast amount of software development companies around the world.” Scrum has been used in education, manufacturing, marketing, operations, and other fields. If you have the skills in dealing with conflicts and you are an experienced facilitator, then these are the top companies in the world that hire skilled Scrum Masters like you. According to the latest data on Glassdoor, the top companies looking for expert Scrum Masters are:Answer Financial Inc. – Encino, CAPegasystems – Cambridge, MADonnelley Financial Solutions – Glen Mills, PAIntraEdge – Phoenix, AZWipro Limited, BengaluruZensar Technologies Limited, HyderabadJP Morgan Chase, HyderabadBarclays – PuneOrange, MumbaiFiserv – Pune, and many moreConclusionGiven the volatile world economy, it is not surprising that Scrum Master salaries are on the rise. Organizations are always keen to hire experienced Scrum Masters who can help to finish projects on time without compromising on quality. Skills of leadership, communications and facilitation help a Scrum Master become a vital cog in the Software development team of any organization. If you’re looking to take the first step on your Scrum Master journey, KnowledgeHut is your go-to training organization that will equip you with the skills you need to get certified.Practice your skills; check out Scrum interview questions and answers here.

Mukundan Bashyam

Program/Project Manager

Mukundan Bashyam has more than 15 years of IT experience working in different roles such as Agile Coach, Scrum Master, and Product Owner. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Scrum Master(CSM) and Certified Agile Coach from ICAgile. He is an accomplished Agile trainer for many organizations and a contributing author for KnowledgeHut. Mukundan has a Bachelor’s degree from Indian Institute of Technology (BHU)-Varanasi and a Master’s degree in Industrial Management from National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai. He has worked with startups and large companies like Hewlett Packard(HP), Target Corporation India, Diageo, and Robert Bosch.

Posts by Mukundan Bashyam

Why Do Scrum Masters Get Paid so Much?

By Mukundan Bashyam

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Why Do Scrum Masters Get Paid so Much?

by Mukundan Bashyam
10 May 2019
6 mins read

While the pandemic has put the world economy into ... Read More

Career Benefits of Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) Certification

By Mukundan Bashyam

As soon as the organizations started relocating to an Agile way of software development, new roles have emerged. One of them is the Product Owner who plays a pivotal role in effectively connecting the needs of the customer and business directly to the development teams in a highly dynamic and responsive manner.Who is a Product Owner?According to the Scrum Guide,“The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Development Team. The Product Owner is the sole person responsible for managing the Product Backlog”.From a business standpoint, one of the most vital roles on any Scrum team is the Product Owner (PO). The product owner is in charge of getting the product to life which customers want. To achieve this, the Product Owner does various activities that include creating the product vision, refining the product backlog, release planning, working with the customers, users, and other Stakeholders, managing the budget, launching the product, attending the Scrum meetings, and collaborating with the team. Since the Product Owner must get input from other business Stakeholders, they need skills such as facilitation, conflict management, creative thinking, and the ability to influence the team and other stakeholders. In the waterfall model of development, we have business representatives and business analyst providing the requirements. The Product Owner combines the authority and responsibility which is distributed across different roles, including the customer or sponsor, the product manager, and the project manager.Responsibilities of a Product OwnerThe Product Owner represents the product, has a broad understanding of the product and “lives and breathes” it. The Product owner is responsible for creating and prioritizing the product backlog, a dynamic list of features for the product. The Product Owner is responsible for prioritizing and deciding what needs to be in the product backlog.The important qualities of a Product Owner include:Visionary and DoerThe Product Owner is a visionary who can envision the final product and communicate the vision. The product owner is also a doer who sees the vision through to completion.Leader and Team PlayerAs the individual is responsible for the product’s success, the product owner provides guidance and direction for everyone involved in the development effort and ensures that tough decisions are made.At the same time, the Product Owner must be a team player who relies on close collaboration with the other Scrum team members, yet has no formal authority over them.Communicator and NegotiatorThe Product Owner must be an effective communicator and negotiator. The individual communicates with aligns different parties, including customers, users, development and engineering, marketing, sales, service, operation and management.Empowered and CommittedThe product owner must have enough authority and the right level of management sponsorship to lead the development effort and to align stakeholders.The product owner must be committed to the development effort.Available and QualifiedThe Product Owner must be available and qualified to do a great job. Being a Product Owner is usually a full-time job. It is important to give products owners enough time to sustainably carry out their responsibilities.The roles and responsibilities of the Product Owner are as follows:The economic success of the project (controls the budget)Gives direction and creates alignmentDefines visionAligns work of a team by prioritization and focusProblem validation of product needsInterface for customer and stakeholdersVoice of customer and stakeholdersOrganizes customer feedbackProvides feedback to the teamsPushes back if necessary to protect the product release planningDefines and updates the product roadmapPlans product releasesManages Requirements/User storiesDefines product attributes & featuresWrites User storiesManages and prioritizes the product backlogDefines constraints to increase focusRisk management on a product levelAccepts or rejects work resultsWhat is CSPO Certification?The Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) certification from Scrum Alliance is a certification for the role of the Product Owner. This certification enables the participant to not only learn the basics but also take on the real-world problems that a typical product owner faces—emerging requirements, stakeholder conflicts and release planning.The Product Owner certification training will help you to learn how to improve a product value by increasing the speed of delivery of product features, leading the Scrum teams and coordinating with the Stakeholders to know their excitement about the product. Also, the Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) certification training leverages an effective communication between the Stakeholders and the development team about the final product to raise the product ROI to a maximum level.Why CSPO?CSPO Certification BenefitsCSPO certification offers the following benefits: Increases the scope of your career opportunities across all industry sectors adopting Agile practicesDemonstrate and apply core Scrum knowledgeUnderstand the foundation of Scrum and learn about the scope of the roleCollaborate with Scrum practitioners committed to continuous improvementIn addition to fulfilling the role of the Product Owner on a Scrum Team, your CSPO certification gives you a two-year membership with Scrum Alliance®. For people pursuing a higher level of certification in Scrum, such as the Certified Scrum Professional (CSP) designation, the CSPO provides attendees 16 Scrum Education Units to contribute to the total 70 SEUs they need to become a CSP. Certified Scrum Product Owner SalariesThe salary of a certified Scrum Product Owner varies from country to country. Collated below are the average salaries for three important countries:The average Scrum Product Owner salary in India is 18 Lakhs per year.The average salary of the Scrum Product Owner in the US is $ 100,831 per year.The average salaries vary from city to city in different countries. Provided below are the salaries for a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO):London: Pound 49,042San Francisco: $ 139,115Note: This data is based on the salary report by Glassdoor and Payscale.Top companies hiring Certified Scrum Product OwnersCertified Scrum Product Owners are sought after by top companies around the world. Some of the top companies which are hiring Certified Scrum Product Owners are Intel, Siemens, Target, EY, GE Healthcare, Honeywell.What are the requirements to become a CSPO?Before becoming a Certified Scrum Product Owner, you must first familiarize yourself with Scrum. The best way to do this is by reading the Agile Manifesto and Scrum Guide and watching the Scrum Foundations eLearning Series. Once you have completed these prerequisites, you must attend an in-person CSPO course taught by a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST). The CSPO course is an in-person course that consists of two 8-hour days. In the course, you will learn the fundamentals of Scrum and the responsibilities of the Product Owner through exercises, discussions, and case studies. The main topics of a CSPO course include:Techniques for developing a Product VisionHow to create, maintain, and order a Product BacklogHow to identify user needsAn overview of sizing in ScrumHow to manage stakeholdersConclusion Certified Scrum Product Owner(CSPO) is a must-have certification for aspiring product owners or anyone who wants to work with the “business side” of projects. This certification ensures that you have a solid foundation to jump-start your career as a Product Owner.

Career Benefits of Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) Certification

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Career Benefits of Certified Scrum Product Owner (...

by Mukundan Bashyam
04 Jan 2019
5 mins read

As soon as the organizations started relocating to... Read More

How SAFe®️ Core Values Quicken The Progress Of An Agile Team

By Mukundan Bashyam

What is Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®️)?The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®️) helps businesses address the significant challenges of developing and delivering enterprise-class software and systems in the shortest sustainable lead time. It is an online, freely revealed knowledge base of proven success patterns for implementing Lean-Agile software and systems at enterprise scale.Developed in the field, SAFe®️ draws from three primary bodies of knowledge: Agile development, systems thinking, and Lean product development. It synchronizes alignment, collaboration, and delivery for large numbers of Agile teams. Scalable and configurable, SAFe®️ allows each organization to adapt it to its own business needs. It supports smaller-scale solutions employing 50–125 practitioners, as well as complex systems that require thousands of people. Why use SAFe®️ ?SAFe®️ combines the power of Agile with systems thinking and Lean product development. It synchronizes alignment, collaboration, and delivery for multiple Agile teams. As a result, SAFe®️ provides dramatic improvements to business agility, including productivity, time to market, quality, and employee engagement, and more.SAFe®️ is improving business outcomes for companies of all sizes across the world. It has produced dramatic increases in time to market, employee engagement, higher quality, higher customer satisfaction, and overall improved economic outcomes. It also helps create cultures that are more productive, rewarding, and fun.QualityBuilt-In Quality practices increase customer satisfaction and provide faster and more predictable value delivery. They also improve the ability to innovate. Without quality, the Lean goal of the maximum value in the shortest sustainable lead time cannot be achieved. ProductivityWhen productivity increases, system development economics improves, as does employee engagement. For team members, productivity is a critical, personal need. Everyone feels better when they’re contributing more and doing less wasteful work.Employee EngagementAccording to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), employees with the highest level of commitment perform 21 percent better and are 65 percent less likely to leave the organization. Clearly, employee engagement is directly linked to business performance.Faster Time to MarketLean-Agile frameworks allow businesses to deliver value to the market more quickly. Companies that adopt Agile development practices routinely gain first-mover advantages and enjoy the higher gross margins afforded to market leaders. SAFe®️ enterprises typically see a 30–75 percent (as much as 3x!) improvement in time to market.SAFe®️ configurationsSAFe®️ supports the full range of development environments with four out-the-box configurationsEssential SAFe®️Portfolio SAFe®️Large Solution SAFe®️Full SAFe®️Essential SAFe®️The Essential SAFe®️ configuration is the heart of the Framework and is the simplest starting point for implementation. It’s the basic building block for all other SAFe®️ configurations and describes the most critical elements needed to realize the majority of the Framework’s benefits. Together, the Team and Program Levels form an organizational structure called the Agile Release Train (ART), where Agile teams, key stakeholders, and other resources are dedicated to an important, ongoing solution mission.Large Solution SAFe®️The Large Solution SAFe®️ configuration is for developing the largest and most complex solutions that typically require multiple Agile release trains and Suppliers, but do not require portfolio-level considerations. The Solution Train organizational construct of the Large Solution Level helps enterprises that face the biggest challenges—building large-scale, multidisciplinary software, hardware, and complex IT systems. Building these solutions requires additional roles, artifacts, events, and coordination. Portfolio SAFe®️The Portfolio SAFe®️ configuration helps align portfolio execution to the enterprise strategy, by organizing Agile development around the flow of value, through one or more value streams. It provides business agility through principles and practices for portfolio strategy and investment funding, Agile portfolio operations, and Lean governance. Full SAFe®️The Full SAFe®️ configuration is the most comprehensive version of the Framework. It supports enterprises that build and maintain large integrated solutions, which require hundreds of people or more and includes all levels of SAFe®️: team, program, large solution, and portfolio. In the largest enterprises, multiple instances of various SAFe®️ configurations may be required. Scaled agile framework core values - SAFe®️ SAFe®️ is broad and deep and based on both Lean and Agile principles as its foundation.Importance of core valuesCore values are the fundamental beliefs of a person or organization.The core values are the guiding principles that speak behavior and action.Core values can help people to know what is right from wrong.It helps companies to determine whether they are working on the right path or not.SAFe®️ upholds four Core Values: alignment, built-in quality, transparency, and program execution, as illustrated in Figure below and described in the following sections.1. AlignmentAlignment ensures that many people act as one unit or team, all pulling in the same direction. Alignment in SAFe®️ is achieved when everyone in the portfolio, and every team member on every ART, understand the strategy and the part they play in achieving it.SAFe®️ delivers alignment by orchestrating strategic themes, vision, roadmap, and PI planning. Economic prioritization and the visible flow of work through the various Kanban systems and backlogs provide visibility and transparency.2.Built-in QualityBuilt-in quality is one of the important core values of SAFe®️. The enterprise’s ability to deliver new functionality with the fastest sustainable lead time and to be able to react to rapidly changing business environments is dependent on solution quality. But built-in quality is not unique to SAFe®️. Rather, it is a core principle of the Lean-Agile mindset, where it helps avoid the cost of delays associated with recall, rework, and defect fixing. The Agile Manifesto is focused on quality as well: “Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.”The following sections summarize recommended practices for achieving built-in quality.SoftwareSAFe®️’s software quality practices—many of which are inspired by Extreme Programming (XP)— help Agile software teams ensure that the solutions they build are high quality and adaptable to change. The collaborative nature of these practices, along with a focus on frequent validation, creates an emergent culture in which engineering and craftsmanship are key business enablers. Test-Driven DevelopmentTest-Driven Development (TDD) is a philosophy and practice that recommends building and executing tests before implementing the code or a component of a system. By validating them against a series of agreed-to tests, TDD—an Agile Testing practice—improves system outcomes by assuring that the system implementation meets its requirements. TDD, along with Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), is part of the ‘test-first’ approach to Build Quality into development. Writing tests first creates a more balanced testing portfolio with many fast, automated development tests and fewer slow, manual, end-to-end tests. Acceptance Test Driven DevelopmentAcceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) is a practice in which the whole team collaboratively discusses acceptance criteria, with examples, and then distills them into a set of concrete acceptance tests before development begins. It’s the best way to ensure that all have the same shared understanding of what it is we are building. It’s also the best way to ensure we have a shared definition of Done.Behavior-Driven DevelopmentBehavior Driven Development (BDD) is a Test-First, Agile Testing practice that provides Built-In Quality by defining (and potentially automating) tests before, or as part of, specifying system behavior. BDD is a collaborative process that creates a shared understanding of requirements between the business and the Development Team. Its goal is to help guide development, decrease rework, and increase flow. Without focusing on internal implementation, BDD tests are business-facing scenarios that attempt to describe the behavior of a Story, Feature, or Capability from a user’s perspective. When automated, these tests ensure that the system continuously meets the specified behavior even as the system evolves. That, in turn, enables Release on Demand. Automated BDD tests can also serve as the definitive statement regarding the as-built system behavior, replacing other forms of behavioral specifications.Continuous IntegrationThis is the practice of merging the code from each developer’s workspace into a single main branch of code, multiple times per day. This lessens the risk of deferred integration issues and their impact on system quality and program predictability. Teams perform local integration at least daily. But to confirm that the work is progressing as intended, full system-level integration should be achieved at least one or two times per iteration.RefactoringRefactoring is “a disciplined technique for restructuring an existing body of code, altering its internal structure without changing its external behavior.” A key enabler of emergent design, refactoring is essential to Agile. To maintain system robustness, teams continuously refactor code in a series of small steps, providing a solid foundation for future development.Pair WorkSome teams follow pair programming, but that may be too extreme for many. More generally, pair work may couple developers and testers on a story. Still, others prefer more spontaneous pairing, with developers collaborating for critical code segments, refactoring of legacy code, development of interface definition, and system-level integration challenges.HardwareHardware quality is supported by exploratory early iterations, frequent system-level integration, design verification, modeling, and set-based design. The Agile architecture supports software and hardware quality.1.System IntegrationDifferent components and subsystems—software, firmware, hardware, and everything else—must collaborate to provide effective solution-level behaviors. Practices that support solution-level quality include:Frequent system and solution-level integrationSolution-level testing of functional and Nonfunctional RequirementsSystem and Solution Demos2.ComplianceSAFe®️ enterprises that build high assurance systems define their approved practices, policies, and procedures in a Lean Quality Management System (QMS). These systems are intended to ensure that development activities and outcomes comply with all relevant regulations and quality standards, as well as providing the required documentation to prove it.3.TransparencyTransparency builds trust. Trust, in turn, is essential for performance, innovation, risk-taking, and relentless improvement. Trust exists when the business and development can confidently rely on another to act with integrity, particularly in times of difficulty. Without trust no one can build high-performance teams and programs, nor build (or rebuild) the confidence needed to make and meet reasonable commitments. And without trust, working environments are a lot less fun and motivating.Here are few SAFe®️ practices which enable trust:ARTs have visibility into the team’s backlogs, as well as other Program Backlogs.Teams and programs commit to short-term, visible commitments that they routinely meet4. Program ExecutionSAFe®️ places an intense focus on working systems and business outcomes. History shows us that while many enterprises start the transformation with individual Agile teams, they often become frustrated as even those teams struggle to deliver more substantial amounts of solution value, reliably and efficiently. That is the purpose of the ART, and that is why SAFe®️ focuses implementation initially at the Program Level. In turn, the ability of Value Streams to deliver value depends on the ability of the ARTs and Solution Trains.ConclusionThe four Core Values of alignment, built-in quality, transparency, and program execution represent the fundamental beliefs that are key to SAFe®️ effectiveness. These guiding principles help dictate behavior and action for everyone who participates in a SAFe®️ portfolio. Successful teams and programs implementing SAFe®️ have aligned their organizations along these core values and getting many benefits—employee engagement, productivity, quality, and time to market.