I had another great question from someone on LinkedIn and I thought I’d share it and my answer here.
I would like advice on career advancement in Software Development and becoming a Scrum Master. Currently, I am a QA analyst and was wondering is it a smooth transition for someone with that skill set?
Congratulations on wanting to become a Scrum Master! Yes, I think it would be a relatively smooth transition for a QA Analyst to become a Scrum Master. I’ve actually seen several QAs become Scrum Masters and several Scrum Masters take on the extra duties of QA to assist the team when they need it.
As a QA Analyst, I’ll presume you’re one of the last steps in the development process before things are approved to merge into the master branch and/or deploy to production. As you’re already the final say in the definition of the task being done, it’s not a big step towards helping the team adhere to their overall Definition of Done.
You also already have a solid set of skills with creating and following a test plan. That easily expands to following the Scrum process and helping to enforce it both in the team as well as with the product owners. The hardest part (in my opinion) is keeping the external influences at bay to allow the team to focus on their current Sprint.
The hardest part of your transition is probably going to be actually getting the job. The easiest way would be to try and move within your current company. You already know your way around, and they know you (which is hopefully a good thing on both sides!) If there’s another Scrum Master there, pair up with them, learn from them, and ultimately get a team of your own to work with.
A brief side note: Many organizations now I’m finding are starting to merge the Scrum Master in with a Project Management role. They think that they can have one person do all of it. Sometimes you can, but most times I think it’s best to have these roles separate.
While you’re doing all that, I’d look into becoming a Certified Scrum Master. It’s usually a two-day class and it covers everything you’ll need to get your feet wet. From there try practicing Scrum on some small projects at home. It’s a little unusual to clean your house using Scrum, but it will help you see how to break the tasks down as well as estimate times and determine what Done means. Then on your interviews, while you may be “green”, you can discuss how you’ve been utilizing it in areas other than IT. It shows that you have a clear understanding of how to utilize Scrum processes in any scenario. The best and worst thing I ever did was teach my wife Scrum…
I hope that helps some and I haven’t rambled too badly. If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to me.