The death of the Scrum Master

Where have all the scrum masters gone?

These days, it seems like the role of a dedicated scrum master for a software development team is more of a luxury than a necessity for organisations.

Having worked as a scrum master, agile project manager, and agile coach for the past fifteen years, I’ve done my fair share of job searches and read postings to notice a dip in the popularity of dedicated scrum master roles.

This isn’t to say that the responsibilities of that role are no longer relevant.

It’s more likely that they’ve been absorbed by other roles like Engineering Manager, Product Manager or even the whole team.

To ensure you’re not missing out, make sure that someone is sharpening their agile leadership skills, even if they’re not the dedicated scrum master.

Given the choice between having a dedicated scrum master or agile coach vs none, of course I’d opt for having one. That being said, there are quite a few teams that are left to muddle through on their own.

We don’t need a dedicated scum master.

Here are some common and less common excuses for not having a dedicated scrum master/agile coach:

Our team is all senior and already has experience in agile methodologies. On the surface, this may be true, but the first question I would ask is, “But are they delivering quality product effectively and efficiently?” If you answer yes, I would ask for the data you use to back that up. And then I’d congratulate you.
We fired all the scrum masters because nothing improved, and all they did was bring to the surface problems that we’d rather not face.
Our last scrum master did magic and made herself obsolete. We learned so much from her and before she left she made sure we had prepared thorough onboarding material for all new hires so that they could get an overview of the what and why of the way we work.
Our [PM or EM] has scrum master responsibilities. This is the more common reason for not having a dedicated role. No problem adding even more responsibilities to these already maxed out roles. Since these people are responsible for the teams anyway it makes sense that they take care of scrum master responsibilities.

Our team is all senior and already has experience in working agile.

I have read about teams like these. They sound amazing to me. My hunch is that it takes deliberate organizational intent to put together teams like this. I recently read about the OpenAI team and their description of what that intent looks like in tangible terms.

We fired all the scrum masters/agile coaches because nothing improved

I’ve experienced this scenario first-hand. While an easy explanation would be something about “shoot the messenger”, it’s likely that the people on the firing line didn’t deliver the silver bullet that could cure all the deep-rooted organisational dysfunctions surrounding them. They probably started at the grassroots level where most scrum masters operate, and, as they pulled the threads to find root causes, they inevitably were led up the hierarchy to senior management. Once they arrived, it may have been easier for management to do another re-org or change project than to make any change themselves.

Of course, there are inexperienced scrum masters out there who can’t create the impact that’s expected from them. If you’ve recently been appointed scrum master you have to start somewhere. I hope that you have more senior colleagues to lean on and learn from. And if not immediate colleagues supporting you then a mentor or two to help guide you.

Our last scrum master did magic and made herself obsolete.

My caution here is that organisations and teams are living systems. As much as things get codified in onboarding documentation, it’s the living day-to-day habits that will determine whether today’s team is performing as well as the original team. If the organisational culture is strongly oriented to continuous improvement and constant learning you’ll be fine. If not, you may find an unhealthy level of “that’s just the way things are done here” casting a long shadow on further optimisations.

Our [EM/PM] has scrum master responsibilities.

This is the current trend, at least in my recent experience. To some extent, it makes sense as these roles are responsible for their teams delivering outcomes. How the team works is integral to their effectiveness, and the process aspects of the scrum master role are all intrinsically bound to that.

The challenge here is that *just* adding another set of responsibilities to an already stretched role can mean that they are either dealt with on a cursory level or forgotten entirely. Or, with these particular roles, the development path might not have included skilling up in all the other areas that scrum masters cover.

Finally, there is the unhealthy paradox of being line-managed by the same person leading the process. There is a reason why the scrum master is separate and neutral – they can provide an objective perspective that doesn’t have an impact on an IC’s career progression. They can guide and challenge the whole team, including the EM and PM.

How to survive without a dedicated scrum master

Let’s say you’re in an organisation without dedicated scrum masters or agile coaches and you find yourself carrying those scrum master responsibilities. What can you do? There are four key areas that probably could use some focused attention, either from yourself, the team, or management.

Clarify roles and responsibilities

One of the most common sources of conflict and churn on teams is confusion or misunderstanding about who is responsible for what. Get together with your entire team to list out the roles and what is expected of each role. Then validate those expectations with the people actually in those roles and make sure there aren’t any gaps.

Visualise and document your ways of working

Similar to roles and responsibilities, there are often multiple versions on the same team about how the work works. Spend some time together mapping out how the team moves from idea to execution to delivery. Create working agreements on how you keep each other up to date, how to deal with being blocked, and what are the non-negotiable touchpoints between yourselves. Document these agreements and review and update them regularly as your team evolves.

Define your definitions of ready and done

What are the criteria required for a piece of work to be ready to work on? What are the criteria required for a piece of work to be done? Document, create checklists, create automated workflows so that the work can flow.

Build in a cadence of feedback loops to foster continuous improvement

It’s important to get off the hamster wheel of development and assess how things are working (or not). You and your team can decide to do this daily, weekly, or at any cadence. Just make sure it happens, otherwise you’ll keep repeating the same mistakes because you’re not changing the way you’re doing things.

Scrum masters and agile coaches are the difference between being agile and doing agile

Sometimes, saying that your company does agile feels like enough. There is a lot more ground to cover, however, if you want your organisation to be agile. We move out of the scope of what single teams are doing to optimise the whole value delivery system. If that is what you’re after then it is well worth the investment to hire dedicated people to do this.

What is your company doing? Do you have dedicated scrum masters or agile coaches?

If so, how effective are they? If not, who is assuming those responsibilities if at all?

Your ally Mel

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