Can We Save the Scrum Master Role Before It Becomes Extinct?

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HinaKawaSan@reddit

Why are these posts on scrum in r/programming, why not post in some project management subreddit?

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ToddLankford@reddit (OP)

You never encounter a scrum master as a programmer?

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HinaKawaSan@reddit

Obviously did, but didn’t think this sub is about that aspect of software development

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spaceneenja@reddit

Im going to go out in a limb and say yes, it can.

Any team member can find ways to add additional value to a team. Once a team is operating well within the agile playbook, you no longer need constant coaching and a scrum master can help other teams at the org. If dedicated to just one team however, an attentive scrum master will still be engaged with the team, be able to tell when things are amiss, and find out how to help, i.e. similar to what would be expected from an engineering manager. They can also act as an assistant to the development team, taking off tasks to follow up with other teams or gather information, coach the support teams on how to better gather information for tickets, i.e similar to an assistant product owner.

My guess is that many Scrum Masters would not seek out this additional work (and why would they?) and just check out after standup is done each day. These people will be eliminated eventually.

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ToddLankford@reddit (OP)

Agreed on all points.

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rad_platypus@reddit

If a role’s entire purpose is filling people’s calendars with useless ceremonies and screen sharing while they move items on a kanban board, it should go extinct.

I’ve had one good “scrum master” in 6 years and that person was just a senior engineer who had half of their availability dedicated to refinement, coordinating with other teams, and unblocking people.

The problem is that almost all companies that adopt Agile (pay consultants to coach people on Atlassian tools and never read the manifesto) fill scrum master roles with middle manager types who are not close to the technical or product side of things.

These people provide no value and actively slow down development in the name of KPIs and burn-down charts.

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Schmittfried@reddit

That‘s not its entire purpose.

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ToddLankford@reddit (OP)

True. Yet many Scrum Masters seem to only focus on the ceremonies. That type of Scrum Master is ornamental at best. And should go extinct. A real Scrum Master does have value though in changing the system for the better, making developer’s lives easier. It’s rare to find this unicorn today though.

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ToddLankford@reddit (OP)

Agreed. That should go extinct (master of ceremonies, scrum police, etc). The person you say was a “good” scrum master is more in line with what the role should be (but rarely is).

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light24bulbs@reddit

It's almost pure waste

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heavy-minium@reddit

The best agile jobs I had were with no Scrum Masters. In my opinion they are only useful in an unhealthy organization because those tend to have conflicts, and a neutral party like a scrum master can mitigate some issues. In a healthy organization, they are usually just dead weight. When they are absolutely needed (things go awry without them), it's a sign that you have something more fundamental to fix in your org.

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ToddLankford@reddit (OP)

The sad case for many orgs IME is that they have numerous missing fundamentals for enabling flow. Enough to warrant a position to focus on improving this situation.

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Osr0@reddit

I fucking hope not. If there's anything I can do to speed up the extinction please let me know.

We need fewer people standing in the presence of the people who do the actual work

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ToddLankford@reddit (OP)

If that is what Scrum Masters do in your org, I would agree.

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Osr0@reddit

In your org are scrum masters doing the actual development work?

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ToddLankford@reddit (OP)

The best know how to develop but leave that up to the developers. Then thsee Scrum Master becomes relentless about removing organizational impediments preventing developers from building great products sooner. This is how I build and develop great Scrum Masters. Sadly, this is not default Scrum Master in many orgs. Very few know how to develop, and it is rare for anyone to cultivate this form of craft in Scrum Masters. Vanilla, inexperienced Scrum Masters become an impediment versus the one that removes impediments. Those should become extinct.

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CTPred@reddit

One of the most important points of a Scrum Master is be the barrier between the people that do the actual work and everyone else. If you're getting interrupted all the time then either your sm is bad or isn't empowered to be able to actually do their job.

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kopituras@reddit

Isn’t that product owner role?

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CTPred@reddit

The PO's role is to handle the stakeholders and negotiate priorities along them. They're supposed to then work with the SM so that the highest priority work gets in the next sprint. They're supposed to basically be the external point of contact for the team for the people that are respecting the process.

If someone disrespects the process and goes around the PO and comes to the team to try to get someone to work on their request immediately, that's the SM's role to step in and redirect them to the PO. When people go around the SM to get managers involved and the managers side with the interruptor over the SM then the SM is not empowered and the whole process is effectively useless.

Basically the SM's focus should be on the team, the PO's focus should be on any externals.

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loptr@reddit

True Scotsman fallacy.

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CTPred@reddit

That's not what a "No True Scotsman" fallacy is. Nice attempt to sound clever though.

There are plenty of teams out there that have empowered Scrum Masters that are good at their jobs. They actually do exist and being on their team is incredible. The biggest issue with Scrum is that managers take it over and try to warp it into something it's not. They way they do that is by neutering the Scrum Master in various ways. The two most common I've personally seen is by making the Scrum Master both the Scrum Master and the Product Owner, and by making the Product Owner the hiring-firing manager of the Scrum Master and/or the team. In both of those cases, the Scrum Master is incapable of doing their job and the team gets overloaded with managerial manipulation.

When Scrum is done right, it's a joy to work with. I've been on a few such teams, and they all worked great. It's the "corporate scrum" bullshit abomination that doesn't work and is just needless interruptions and misery.

It's sad that we have a whole new generation of devs in the industry that probably have never seen an actual functional scrum team. All they see is corporate scrum bullshit and think that even just the premise of scrum is bad because of it.

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KaleidoscopeLegal583@reddit

Why do you want to?

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Schmittfried@reddit

Because a good one is worth their weight in gold. But they don’t need to be saved in the first place.

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Determinant@reddit

A good one results in a self-organizing team that no longer needs a scrum master. If the scrum master is still needed after a few months then they didn't do a good job.

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Schmittfried@reddit

I disagree, a moderator is always a valuable addition, but they might be present less frequented after some time. Regardless, a neutral person with people skills moderating the retros is still a hard requirement (though that‘s obviously not a full-time job unless your org has many teams).

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Determinant@reddit

A moderator isn't needed in a well functioning team. Simply take turns for who will run the meetings rotating every sprint

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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS@reddit

The article seems to be written for people who have this job.

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KaleidoscopeLegal583@reddit

I had the same impression.

so, job security?

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light24bulbs@reddit

Agile was always just an employment machine for middle managers

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Schmittfried@reddit

Nonsense.

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light24bulbs@reddit

You're right, it was also a way for atlassian to sell their shovel ware

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Schmittfried@reddit

Again, nonsense.

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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS@reddit

Why would someone want to remain employed, is that your question?

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KaleidoscopeLegal583@reddit

No.

My question is: Do you think the author wants to save the scrum master role, so he has job security?

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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS@reddit

I think the audience is concerned with keeping their jobs, yes.

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KaleidoscopeLegal583@reddit

And the author is capitalizong on that.

I concur.

Thank you for your input.

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scubamonkey13@reddit

Came here for this.

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MariusDelacriox@reddit

It's working as intended when they scrum master disappears after the process is established. The role is only needed in the beginning.

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AutomateAway@reddit

probably written by an out of work scrum master who does little work on a daily basis. it’s a job that fills a void that does not exist. if you need a scrum master, your process sucks.

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light24bulbs@reddit

But who will create ceremonies? Who will guide the retro? 🤮

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zanotam@reddit

And my standup!

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AutomateAway@reddit

Skynet 😂

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aa-b@reddit

But isn't that the point? Your team's process sucks, and the scrum master's role is to fix it. That might be impossible, so I guess the role is partly to be a professional scapegoat

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AutomateAway@reddit

if your teams process sucks you can fix it without a scrum master

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aa-b@reddit

Sure, but the team's process sucks because they haven't fixed it. Presumably someone outside the team noticed and appointed someone to get it done

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AutomateAway@reddit

none of this requires a permanent position on the team. at best it might require hiring a consultant if the team feels ill equipped to address any problems. but the “scrum industry” has fooled companies into believing it needs to be a permanent fixture in a dev team. that’s snake oil

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aa-b@reddit

You're quite right, and in most large companies the scrum master will rotate between teams and help launch projects, run retrospectives, etc. They also run training courses, create project and reporting templates, things like that.

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Particular-Elk-3923@reddit

No!

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RoutineWolverine1745@reddit

The only scrum masters I have had that did anything useful did not have it as a fulltime job, it was a role one of the more senior devs took on during the ceremonies. I cannot for the life of me see how it could be fulltime job

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jesus_was_rasta@reddit

Scrum Amsters, you mean /s

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ValurianEwan@reddit

I believe Scrum Master as a role is not a full-time job. It's there to ensure that the procedures and ceremonies of having a repeatable and predictable working structure for a project or product is fulfilled. There is no single person who can hold that role, either, and it should be filled by someone ON the team. With one exception, if you're following Scrum, the Product Owner cannot hold it since it would be a conflict of interest.

The Scrum Master should be of the people doing the work, and understand what the team is going through. They advocate for the development team and are there to help provide a conduit so that stakeholders does not continuously pick anyone from the group to talk to on the state of the project during a given sprint. They can handle projections and keep people accountable. I do not feel it's a managerial role of people or project, even though there is nothing saying that someone in either of those roles cannot fulfill a SM. They definitely need to have soft skills, so that they can communicate effectively with team, PO and stakeholders about managing expectations. They are definitely a coach and mentor for the Scrum process, not necessarily the leader of the team, but they can be, too.

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ToddLankford@reddit (OP)

Depends on the degree of organizational disfunction. The role is not there to manage the team. It is there to enable flow by changing the org to allow it.

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OurLordAndSaviorVim@reddit

In this thread: people at small shops wondering why large shops have made dedicated Scrum Masters a job.

For the record, it’s because the context switching necessary to be both a dev and the scrum master is enough of a productivity hit that it becomes worthwhile to separate out that responsibility once your project has enough teams working on it.

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-Banana_Pancakes-@reddit

I love my scrum master he argues with Business for us.

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DuckDatum@reddit

Natural selection is a good thing. It makes sure that the next generation is prepared for the challenges to come. Let it die. Let it be replaced by things that matter.

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TheEndDaysAreNow@reddit

The best way would be to issue hunting permits with a bag limit /s

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acroback@reddit

It is the most stupidest title ever.

Scrum masters are extra fluff for day to day working.

A good manager doesn't need this, as you need technical chops to understand things which Scrum masters do not have most of the times.

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