Is the Scrum Master Role Becoming Obsolete? The Shift in Agile Leadership
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
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In this video, Todd and Ryan discuss the shifting role of the Scrum Master and whether hiring a dedicated Scrum Master still makes sense in today’s business environment. With the 2020 Scrum Guide update emphasizing accountabilities, they argue that development managers should step up to fulfill the Scrum Master responsibilities rather than hiring a separate person. They highlight the mismatch between companies' expectations of Scrum Masters-often hiring them as project managers or Jira administrators-and the actual needs of Scrum, leading to layoffs and job misalignment. Please tune in to hear their thoughts on how this evolving role could impact the future of Agile teams.
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What happened to the "if Scrum Master is the manager (also part of the Scrum Team) who gives the money, so people might be telling the Scrum Master/manager what they want to hear, and they'd act preferably but only on surface level" thought? How would a Sprint Retrospective be a safe place to talk while the boss is there? How would a shy dev practice courage when it comes to professional debates?
Don't get me wrong, I totally understand your point. I'm trying to be more useful for the company I work for. I also tried to get into engineering management and similar positions because I live what you guys were talking about in this vid, but since my previous work title was Scrum Master, I think they aren't very fond of me. Tho, I do tons of work for (and sometimes instead of) the managers.
Understand your point, but are the devs comfortable on being fired/promoted by someone who is completely out of the team and was always blocked from entering in such discussions to understand how the team really works? there will always be this discomfort towards someone, the scrum master has the ability and duty to empower the team to self manage itself, what i think that it makes clear that decisions can't be single handedly by scrum master criteria, but if he have this power at least he can try to share it with the team.
If we are accepting the scrum master to be a sharable accountability (many may not agree), could we not find a way for a dev team lead and another team member to share the accountability in such a way that the transparency concern you rise is not harmed, but still the team lead takes on some of the scrum master responsibilities?
@@giannicasagrande5637 Interesting take. My concern with this is then why the Scrum guide explicitly says "DeveloperS" in plural but "the Product Owner" and "the Scrum Master"? But outside of this, roles and responsibilities is a very difficult subject when you design an organization or just a part of it. Common pitfall is opaque accountabilities and responsibilities.
@@Rekettyelovag people advocating for sharing the scrum master accountability as fair game highlight the fact that the scrum guide is much more strict in stating "The Product Owner is one person, not a committee" then it is for the scrum master.
I didn't make up my mind either on whether this spread can work, but if the accountability share helps a team and the cost is I can't call my process scrum, I'm totally fine with that cost.
Most corporations never had SM on board, they re-branded PM's and they never experienced Scrum as it always was waterfall in sprint. I saw it with my own eyes. In most companies scrum is dead cause it never was alive.
Very true in many cases. We hope to see Scrum plus EBM lead to much better implentations and ultimately better products.
I think this is further evidence that agile is on its last legs. Key aspect of agility is empowering individuals and teams to self-organize and have agency over how they do their work. As we’ve seen with RTO policies, the powers that be are bringing back the choke chain and returning to their regularly scheduled programming: command and control.
The last thing corporations want to do is empower employees to self-organize.
Agile was a nice experiment while it lasted.
Self-organization is a skill. It takes time to get good at it. Self-organization does mean the absense of management. It'd be great to see a way for leadership and teams to collaboratively work on creating great products.
@@AgileforHumans You wanted to write "...does NOT mean the absence of management" right? :D
I think the accountability fits well for a Program Manager. It should just be part of what they do.
We 100% agree. Thanks for being here an commenting.
Should I be looking for a new role as currently a SM and this feels relevant.
dev manager is already busy
while we have someone else doing less due to projects turning into products
why not: project manager as a title
+ scrum master a role?
tried it and it works perfectly
Sounds like a great combo. Well done!
Can you guys talk about the same thing but at the RTE level? Thanks.
Yuval and Ryan might discuss this on a future Breaking the SAFe episode.
People have been saying that for YEARS but the scrum master die hards never wanted to hear it. ‘Oh we only remove blockers’ ‘oh we don’t get involved with the resourcing or risk management’
Thats an interesting point of view, the manager removing the obstacles and facilitating the delivery!
You guys are missing one point. In real life, the Scrum Master serves the interests of the business owner, not the team. Transparency is primarily necessary for the business.
Hopefully the SM serves both. However, the point of Scrum is getting products created and value delivered. Business is part of the equation.
I'm very curious what these team interests are? What team interests are against the business interests?