ScrumMaster Checklists

Even if for some Agile and Scrum practitioners, checklists can have the bad reputations as being on the wrong side of the “Individuals and interactions over processes and tool ” Agile Manifesto preferred values, it doesn’t always mean that it contains “items you should always check”. They can be also considered as a good practice that allows to capitalize and share experience when they are used as guidelines to assess the different aspects of a situation.

This article presents various websites, articles and blog posts that suggest checklists for ScrumMasters. The main reference is scrummasterchecklist.org and many websites just reference this content. We tried to uncover different perspectives on this topic. I hope their content might help beginner or experienced ScrumMasters consider their work with a different perspective. Feel free to suggest any content that I missed and that should be featured in this article.

Updates:
* June 16 2021: added StarAgile, Ansar Kanhiroli

* Michael James’ Example Scrum Master Checklist

This site is dedicated to Michael James’ Example Scrum Master Checklist, an example list of things a Scrum Master should pay attention to in a typical organization. This list is translated in multiple languages (Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Spanish, etc.) Some of the items mentioned in this list are “Is the backlog an information radiator immediately visible to all stakeholders?” or “Are there issues/opportunities the team isn’t discussing because they’re too uncomfortable?”.

Web address: http://scrummasterchecklist.org/

* Crisp Scrum Checklist

The Scrum checklist is a simple tool created by Henrik Kniberg that provides guidelines to help you get started with Scrum or assess your current implementation of Scrum. Some of the items mentioned in this list are “Team has a sprint backlog that is updated daily” or “Velocity only includes items that are Done”.

Web address: https://www.crisp.se/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Scrum-checklist.pdf (PDF)

* SolutionsIQ ScrumMaster Thoughtlist

This blog post reminds the danger of checklists when they are used by Agile teams to “do things because the checklist says they should, not because it brings any value”. It then provides an Agile “thoughtlist” to help ScrumMasters, agile teams, and product owners. Some of the items mentioned in this list are “Is the Sprint planning meeting length proportionate to the length of the Sprint?” or “Do the improvements selected in the Sprint retrospective regularly result in actions and changes that are carried out in the next Sprint?”

Web address: https://www.solutionsiq.com/resource/blog-post/do-scrummasters-need-agile-checklists/

* Pascal Dufour Scrum Master Checklist

This document uses a mindmap to present a list of positive (relax) and negative (take action) situations that a ScrumMaster should monitor. Some items mentioned in this list are “There is a shared understanding of the Definition of Done” and “The development team expect that the Product Owner checks the delivered items complies to the Definition of Done”

Web address: https://www.mindmeister.com/fr/672804229/a-scrum-master-checklist

* Scrum Master Daily Checklist by StarAgile

This blog post proposes a list of questions that could help Scrum Masters to identify issues about its work and about the product owner, development team, engineering practices and learning organization.

Web address: https://staragile.com/blog/scrum-master-checklist

* Ansar Kanhiroli Daily Checklist

Ansar Kanhiroli proposed a list of 25 questions to assess the status of the current sprint. Some of the questions are “Is the team able to work independently, without technical dependencies?”, “Are there any conflicts/potential conflicts within the team that I should be aware of?” and “Are we having FUN?”

Web address: https://medium.com/@ansark/a-simple-daily-checklist-for-a-scrummaster-54a6c8acf513