Scrum Master, or Scrum Secretary?

Many organizations have watered down the Scrum Master role to the point of being a mere ‘Scrum Secretary’ - someone who schedules meetings, ‘facilitates’ those meetings in an ad-hoc way, and records meeting minutes that no one reads. No offense to secretaries - they do valuable work — but a true Scrum Master is so much more than an administrator. The Scrum Guide tells us the Scrum Master is ‘accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness’ (emphasis is mine). Furthermore, ‘Scrum Masters are true leaders who serve the Scrum Team and the larger organization’.

To be successful, a Scrum Master needs to be a skilled facilitator, an inspiring coach, and a persistent and stubborn roadblock-remover.

Note that the Scrum Master is accountable for team success. This job is too big for one person - it takes a village. The Scrum Master will certainly need support from team members, Product Owners, stakeholders, and managers. This begs the questions, should the team manager be the Scrum Master? Perhaps. While that can have pitfalls, it might work, as we’ve written about previously. The job of Scrum Master isn’t necessarily a full-time role within every team, but it’s gotta have some horsepower behind it and supportive leadership.

Pop quiz: think of your favorite professional sports team. How important is the coach to the team’s success? If you think good coaching is essential, then you may realize that good Scrum Mastery is also essential.

Image by Cody Geary under the Creative Commons license.