My son read lately in reddit about Scrum, an agile way of project management in IT. He asked me some questions and finally, he said there is also a certification about that. I agreed, and asked back: Does the certification makes me a ‘good’ Scrum Master? Here are some questions I’ve given my son to think about. I’ve seen those situations in several companies I’ve been to and I’m sure that some or all of them won’t be unfamiliar to you.

The product roadmap is driven by sales. and the development teams cannot cope with it. How the roadmap can be made so that it gains acceptance by the teams?

Friday afternoon comes in a burning bug from a big customer and it’s an escalation. It concerns different areas of the product. What would you do as Scrum Master (SM)?

Two persons build the same tool, each one in their ways. In the end, we have two different implementations of the same thing and we are confused about which one to use. Those persons have talked but couldn’t find a common ground. What would you do?

A team works with an external partner and complains that the partner doesn’t satisfy the agreed service. They want to change the partner but the upper management is reluctant. What would you do?

The Product Line Manager and the main stakeholder refuse to come to review. She thinks her presence there is redundant. She says she has given already her specifications to the teams. What would you do?

The same problem comes all over again in the retrospective. what would you do?

The product is dimensioned for small customers. Its performance suffers enormous out of this scale. One day the Product Line Manager comes and says “Great news we’ve already sold it to a huge customer. they will launch in 3 months”. The developers are frustrated. What will you do?

The Product Owner leaves for vacation and when he returns he finds that he’s been replaced by his stand-in. What would you do?

The team has planned an essential refactoring already a year ago and it never has time to execute it. There is always an urgent feature to be delivered. What would you do?

An experienced colleague has criticized the management for a long time and finally, he is asked to quit. What would you do?

Those and much more came to my mind as I discussed with my son the theory of Scrum. Yes, you take an orientation with the theory, yes you take a basis with the certification. When you go through to implement those things in a middle-sized company it’s like you’ve gone to a jungle with a kid-knife. Don’t interpret my message as pessimistic. The knife grows as you walk through. However, be prepared for unexpected issues, conflicts, and chaotic interactions. Be prepared to face the amazing nature of human beings.