We don't need no Scrum Master

I see more and more comments from Agilists complaining that, more often than not, Scrum Master is yet another name for Project Manager.

Agility (and Scrum) promotes self-organized teams.

In such teams there is no hierarchy.

Team members organize themselves as they wish and efficient communication ensures it works.

Self-organization and communication are the true roots for emergence, something all Agilists should aim for.

Contrary to that, traditional projects are hierarchically organized around a Project Manager.

He is the leader of the project and team members report to him or her.

He is the only one to decide about the organization and the processes followed by the team.

The task is daunting. When you add control over the dreaded tryptic of quality, budget and schedule, you can guess what usually happen...

As widely quoted, 1994 Chaos Report from The Standish Group shows a shocking 16% rate of success among IT projects.

Their figures are much debatable, as proves J. Laurenz Eveleens and Chris Verhoef article, "The Rise and Fall of Chaos Report Figures", published in January/February 2010 issue of IEEE Software, but you get the idea.

If you have a minute or two I widely encourage you to read it.

If you ever wondered why statistics do not show much sign of an improvement over the past few years despite the wide adoption of Agile, there is your answer!

You may guess that with such heavy duties, project managers have long been a role of great importance in organizations.

When IT projects costs millions, it's no surprise (and I dare say quite natural) that you want to be sure to have the best control you can (now you understand why some fear self-organized Agile teams).

The quick rise of Agile put all those guys at risk. What is their value if teams no longer have a leader? What if people start self-organizing? Would they have to quit?

But as said, they are smart...

Soon enough, projects managers started becoming Scrum Masters.

Nothing had changed, only the title.

Brilliant, but when you think about it that could have been predicted.

Why is it that Scrum invented the role of Scrum Master but for providing a role for former project managers?

The Scrum Master is there to vouch for the good use of the methodology, has final say on backlog elements, and keep trackers up-to-date.

But when you think about it, why would you need that?

Isn't a Scrum team self-organized?

When I coach Agile projects, I encourage the teams to switch roles so that the Scrum Master is not always the same person.

It helps people both to embrace the methodology and to start self-organizing.

It's rare to truly reach a state where the team is self-organized, but for such teams:

We don't need no Scrum Master...

Credits: Original design by N. Lochet (based on The Wall CD cover and Scrum Alliance logo)