Do you need a Scrum Master? Understanding the Scrum Master role

By Nathan Donaldson

Tags: Agile , Other

Recently Alistair Cockburn, one of the 17 original Agile Manifesto authors, posted a question he was asked by a person called Gaboo, about the role of the Scrum Master.

Part of any Agile process necessitates stopping and thinking about the quality of the product you are producing as well as the quality of the methodology that is being used (12th principle ~  At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.) With this in mind, questions about whatever framework we may or may not use should not only be asked, but embraced and seriously thought about when brought up.

Getting to grips with the Scrum Master role

Gaboo wanted to know:

1. Is there anything implicit which says that the Scrum Master must have background in software process improvement and psychology?
2. If they don’t have a professional background, how can they judge team dynamics and software development issues?
3. How can the progress of the team or the performance of the Scrum Master be measured?

I immediately saw why Alistair posted this question. These are all extremely valid questions as the role of the Scrum Master is a bit hard to understand in the business world. Managers are responsible for planning, delivering projects and organising the team. If a Scrum Master isn’t directly responsible for delivering the product and the team decides how they want to organize themselves, what is the Scrum Master responsible for and what kind of skills do they need?

The Scrum Master role in practice

I posted a response to Gaboo’s questions and I answered as best I could without using definitions and doctrine. I tried to focus on my experience with the Scrum Master role and how it fits into our team’s dynamic.

•  Questions 1 & 2 were similar and I tried to tie them together with this response: 
  It doesn’t hurt to have experience in software if you are coaching software teams, but not in order to solve their problems. It may be useful to have similar experiences to that of the team so you can relate to them. The Scrum Master position is concerned with enhancing productivity through collaboration, not through software or a commanding influence.
• Question 3, about measuring the progress of the team and Scrum Master, I answered with:
  I think the only way I can attempt to share any insight on this is to indirectly answer your question with the thought that Agile (Scrum) is a framework to encourage empirical thinking/reasoning in a team. If a team isn’t iteratively looking at what it’s producing and how it’s producing it, it isn’t progressing. Because of the iterative nature of Agile (and thus Scrum) this evaluation is always being made. Though there are many tools to measure progress and influence, the very act of iteratively analysing the team is a progress indicator unto itself.

To get the full context of my answers, and a few more tid-bits concerning the Scrum Master’s role with impediments, you can read my full response on Alistair’s blog post on Why do we need a Scrum Master?

These are my thoughts on the subject. I’d be interested to hear about anyone else’s experiences/reservations on the role of the Scrum Master.

Learn more

What is Scrum?

The Board Agile talk show

Episode 4 — Good Scrum Masters, replacing a product owner and more

Episode 20 — The Scrum Master role and more Scrum tips