How many Scrum Masters are Needed in IT World !!

How many Scrum Masters are Needed in IT World ?

How many Scrum Masters are Needed in IT World ? very interesting question for modern Agile World. Some Teams have Partial Scrum Masters and others have Full time Scrum Masters. Whether Full time or partial, modern Teams need Scrum Masters !! So each Modern Agile Scrum Team need a Scrum Master Role. Let us discuss more on these points in this tiny interesting Article !! Disclaimer: This article is purely based on my view and sometimes I might be wrong but most of the times I am Correct & Good :)

Welcome to my View of World !!

Around 3 years back I predicted that every traditional IT team will become a Scrum Team in 5 years. Now if we observe the number of jobs open for various agile roles like Agile Coach, Scrum Master, Product Owner and Product Manager etc in the thousands of organizations across the Globe we can realize that "Agile" is going to be the only Mantra for Modern Teams, Projects / Products.

Scrum is the most widely used Process Framework of Agile and is used with other Bodies of Knowledge & Processes like Systems Thinking, Lean, Kanban, Extreme Programming, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) , Disciplined Agile Development (DAD) etc. And Scrum Framework helps the most of the Teams to achieve Agility. Scrum Framework has 3 roles:

• Scrum Master
• Product Owner
• Team Member

Now our topic is How many Scrum Masters are Needed in IT World ?

To have answer for this first we need to understand How many scrum teams we can form. To achieve the Agility every organization is now migrating their Traditional teams into Agile Scrum Teams and the great advantage of Scrum Framework is that we can integrate with other Agile methodologies easily. And the teams who uses Scrum need a Scrum Master. Means for every modern Agile Scrum Team we need a Scrum Master. This is one Answer !!

Every Modern Agile Scrum Team need a Scrum Master. This is Answer-1

Partial Scrum Masters:

Some Scrum teams uses one of the Team Members as Scrum Master, means that member contribute to the delivery as an individual contributor(IC) as well and also plays the Scrum Master role. This works up to some extent !! If the scrum team is not part of any Release Train or Tribe then Partial Scrum Master role is sufficient to achieve the Agility provided that Scrum Master has the ability to balance the roles of IC and Servant Leader.

Sometimes Partial Scrum Masters get burnt out because of various reasons like they will not get much empowerment from Managers and they can NOT challenge the Managers as they are IC also. And sometimes Team also do not pay much attention to Partial Scrum Masters as they consider them as IC only. Or sometimes Partial Scrum Masters may have to work on delivery items as an IC than providing Servant Leadership.

If the Scrum Team is not part of any System like Release Train or Tribe then Partial Scrum Master role is sufficient to achieve the Agility provided that Scrum Master has the ability to balance the roles of IC and Servant Leader. This is Answer-2

Project Managers as Scrum Masters:

Some organizations uses their Managers as Scrum Masters. This also works in bits and there is a lot of difference between Traditional Control Based Managers and the Modern Agile Servant Leaders. At the same time we cannot say all traditional managers are not Servant Leaders. If we observe any successful team there will be Servant Leaders behind it !! That is why Agile Made it official to provide Servant Leadership !! Scrum Master's key responsibility is to provide Servant Leadership and influence the Team to Achieve Agility.

Some Projects Managers can be successful as Scrum Masters also if they are experienced as Servant Leaders in the Past. So some organizations uses their Projects Managers as Scrum Masters. But the success rate is very low in this case !!

Traditionally Every Team has a Manager. And now every Modern Agile Scrum Team need a Scrum Master. So Every Team need a Scrum Master !! This is Answer-3

Full Time Scrum Masters:

Now most of the organizations are planning to assign 2 or 3 scrum Teams to every Full Time Scrum Master. And one thing to note is that whether it is full time or partial scrum master role, nobody reports to Scrum Masters. And the full time Scrum Master role is given to the experienced leaders means it is highly recommended to have total 12+ years of experience and 5 years of Tech & Servant Leader Experience otherwise it is very difficult to handle 2 or 3 teams as a Full time Scrum Master.

When the Scrum Teams are part of larger System like Release Trains or Tribes then Full Time Scrum Masters are very helpful in achieving & maintaining the Agility. So for every 2 or 3 scrum teams we need a Scrum Master. Means if the organization has total 100 scrum Teams then it need around 30 to 40 Scrum Masters based on the complexity of their Products & Projects.

So for every 2 or 3 scrum teams we need a Full time Scrum Master. This is Answer-4.

To conclude there are many job openings for Scrum Masters as the Organizations are serious about Agile Transformation. Modern IT world need more Scrum Masters to provide Servant Leadership. Every Agile Team need a Scrum Master and 2 or 3 Scrum teams can be Lead by a Full time Scrum Master.

Please review my articles and provide your valuable feedback, let us take the Agile World to a Step Forward !!

Please go through my other Publications on Agile if you are interested:

? Article: “How to Hire an Agile Coach from 2021”

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/how-hire-agile-coach-from-2021-kalyan-katuru/

? Article: The Agile Mindset, Purpose of all the Agile Trainings & Certifications

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/agile-mindset-purpose-all-trainings-certifications-kalyan-katuru/

? Article: “Agile is the Best thing happening in Software Engineering”, Apply 80:20

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/agile-best-thing-happening-software-engineering-apply-kalyan-katuru/

? Article: Inflation @ Work, Agile Resolution

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/inflation-work-agile-resolution-kalyan-katuru/

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