How important is it for a Scrum/Agile Team to understand the role of a Scrum Master?
At the end of one of my usual 1-on-1's with my developers, I asked for feedback about my approach as I usually do, and she said she doesn't really understand my role so it would be difficult to give feedback.
One of the keys to implementing Scrum successfully is to educate the team and the wider organisation before starting.
Scrum is not intuitive and roles like the Scrum Master and Product Owner can easily be misunderstood. This is particularly true when people equate these roles to traditional development roles like Project Managers.
If you haven't done it already, I would suggest that you organise some sessions to:
It depends how mature the Team is. It's the Scrum Master's job to inform the Team about Scrum - including the details of the Scrum Master role. But it doesn't need to happen all at once.
When just starting out, I wouldn't expect everyone to know much about every role.
Eventually, though, the Team should mature enough such that any member of the Team would be capable of taking on the role his/herself.
When a buzzword like Scrum comes into picture, it is obvious for the teams to get overwhelmed. In your case, I believe you need to get in conversation with team as a whole and ask them to question you.
It is indeed a challenging thing to do, but it has its own benefits. Unless the team comes into terms with why you are trying to implement Scrum, they will never participate fully in the scrum events.
ScrumMaster is the servant-leader of the team.
Unless you have this open communication channel established with the team, you will neither be able to serve nor lead the team.
