Evolution of the Scrum Master Role: From Facilitator to COO

“Capital One Financial Corp. cut the “agile” group within its technology department this week [...] affecting 1,100 employees…” - WSJ

“We struggled to see the value of the Scrum Master role. The type of people in the role didn’t understand the business. They were prescriptive about Scrum rather than practical about the business.” - Scrum Inc. Health Industry Client

“Scrum Masters are being treated like team admins.” - Scrum Inc. Tech Industry Client

“Leadership is asking: what are we paying these people for?” - Scrum Inc. Manufacturing Industry Client

These industry patterns along with general industry sentiments expressed across social media platforms challenging the function of the Scrum Master role highlight how misunderstood the Scrum Master role really is. A role that can significantly improve operational effectiveness has somehow been boxed into an outside facilitator role, and thought of as someone who does not/should not have the power to influence the strategic direction of a team let alone an organization. This raises a crucial question - how did a role designed to be so instrumental in team and organizational success become so misunderstood and limited in its impact??

Before we look at the why, it is important to understand that the Scrum Master role has always been designed to be a leadership role - a true leader who serves and a change agent accountable for enabling a highly effective delivery engine both at the team and organization level that delivers value to the customer at a rapid pace. A Scrum Master has a holistic system view, with the scale of the role indicating the increasing perimeter of the view, ensuring:

1. value delivery across teams is aligned with organizational outcomes and strategy
2. releases spanning multiple teams are integrated, with dependencies highlighted and resolved
3. impediments are quickly shared and promptly removed, ensuring that teams understand which impediments they are empowered to remove and how to escalate issues they cannot resolve
4. key information and knowledge is radiated to increase alignment and reduce duplication of efforts
5. a positive, psychologically safe, collaborative, and innovative working culture with a continuous improvement mindset
6. the operating system of the organization continues to adapt and evolve based on emerging market and organizational needs

When we combine this understanding with the need for this role in a complex adaptive system, we know that it requires an inherent investment in the organization's success and future, which does not come from a purely facilitative positioning. So what then is the problem, and how did we end up in a place where companies are laying off Agile roles, especially Scrum Masters, in droves?

Earlier this year, Scrum Inc. hosted our semi-annual Agile Transformation Community of Practice (CoP) and we invited the global transformation leaders in attendance to discuss their thoughts on this challenge. There was widespread concern among these leaders that the Scrum Master role’s potential is not being maximized. Here is a summary of the major issues they shared as the reasons:

1. the Agile industry has not put enough accountability on the Scrum Master role and many do not feel accountable for delivery
2. at the same time, organizations have not empowered Scrum Masters to be leaders
3. a lot of Scrum Masters seem to focus on doing Agile and acting as guardians of the framework, instead of thinking holistically about the solution, being integrated and embedded into the team and organization, and ensuring they are navigating the organizational and team spaces effectively to implement the solution
4. organizations are not spending significant time thinking about who takes on the Scrum Master role, ensuring they are someone:

• who has the right experience for their domain and industry
• who has the right non-Agile skill sets such as business acumen, strategic thinking, systems thinking, root cause analysis, portfolio/program/project management, change management, process optimization, and risk management
• who has the right mindset/aptitude as well as influence to foresee potential impediments, feel true ownership of the results and can chart a path forward towards removal/resolution of impediments including systemic issues, understanding the policies and politics of getting things done and released

The answers these leaders shared match closely with the patterns we have observed as part of our consulting work at Scrum Inc. , patterns that we are actively working to change so that organizations can harness the true power of this role. Increasingly we understand that the evolution of the role’s positioning from a facilitator to COO, someone responsible for operational effectiveness, is in fact a matter of understanding the design of the role, enabling the competency, and changing the mindset as well as the environment. More tactically, to enable the potential of the Scrum Master role, this is what we recommend organizations and Scrum Masters start doing? today to address the concerns highlighted above:

As Organizations:

• clearly define Scrum Master accountabilities and link them with effective and rapid delivery as well as performance of the organization, ensuring that the role is setup to be a leadership role within the team and the organization?
• ensure the system enables Scrum Master empowerment and respect, and then employ a more careful approach in choosing Scrum Masters and ensure they have the skill set (both agile and non-agile), experience, and respect to be viewed as leaders
• enable Scrum Master's ability to influence, understand, and communicate organizational strategy to enable decisions that will move the needle

As Scrum Masters:

• understand the organizational context and help the organization adopt Agile in its domain to enable an efficient operating model
• build and continuously grow their agile and non-agile skills in service of organizational performance and effectiveness
• operate as change agents and information radiators, enacting the OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop to influence critical metrics such as profitability, cycle times, decision latency, employee engagement, velocity as it relates to increased speed of delivery, and speed of awareness
• embrace the leadership aspect of the role to ensure the team and organization is achieving its potential
• ensure value delivery is outcome oriented and ensure team is focused on, and hold the team accountable for, delivery of this value as prioritized by the organization?
• partner with leadership teams, Product Owners and team members, and influence the why, what, and how because they understand the golden circle as it relates to the mission, strategic direction, and desired outcomes of the organization

Ultimately, as with any Agile role, it is not about doing agile; it is about being agile. By understanding and embodying the above capabilities, Scrum Masters can play a significant role in driving value and contributing to the long-term success of their organizations, fulfilling the intended purpose and true potential of the role.

So now the question becomes how do we create the competencies needed to drive the potential of the role, integrating the agile and non-agile skills, to enable the empowerment needed for the role to succeed? Join me, Preetinder (Preeti) Pugatch , in an upcoming LinkedIn Live conversation with Enterprise Agile Consultants James Edmondson and Shaun Thompson as we explore this topic further. Here is a teaser:?

“We might equate the Scrum Master’s development to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. At the bottom, shelter, food and warmth we can equate this to the very basic accountabilities of what we expect a Scrum Master to be able to support a team with. But for a team to be truly effective they require a Scrum Master who can operate at the top of Maslow's hierarchy: self-actualization (Shu-ha-ri). But to get there, they need to develop along two pillars 1. Competence (agile and non agile) and 2. Clarity of purpose (self, team, and org) (see David Marquet’s pillars for intent based leadership). So the question for organizations is how do you enable Scrum Masters to rise to the top of the pyramid and be truly empowered to release the full effectiveness of a team?”

In the meantime, check out our Scrum Master and Scrum Master@Scale courses where we bring in real life scenarios and case studies from our consulting experience to complement the theory and show practical application of both agile and non-agile skills to drive organizational success. Our courses are taught by industry experts and are specifically designed to enable students to start implementing improved ways of working immediately. Join us and let’s change the way the world works, together.