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Does external Scrum Master find themselves on the bridge of extinction?

Last post 04:30 pm May 22, 2016 by James Green
2 replies
Anonymous
03:18 am May 18, 2016

The way scrum as evolved I wonder if external scrum masters are finding themselves on the bridge of extinction?

The reason why I say this is because I see that the "threshold" of being a scrum master (not talking about being a GOOD scrum master but just in general) is relatively low. And many organisations have a wrong misinterpretation of the scrum master position.

This results in many internal people becoming scrum masters and not utilizing knowledge of external consultants.

*just wondering/ thinking out loud*


11:44 am May 18, 2016

I had a workmate working as architect (long time ago). Once the p.m. asked him to develop code along with developers and he refused running the risk to be fired or accused with the high management.

I think that this discipline, as any other, depends on the attitude of each one of us, and how serious we can take our own paper in our organisations.

Whenever possible, try to avoid mixing papers, like s.m. and developer, or p.o. and s.m.


04:30 pm May 22, 2016

I have seen several companies that have adopted scrum and have selected from within existing development teams who will be the scrum master.
The problem with this is that you may end up with a SM that is also doing development. This mix of roles makes it very hard for the SM to focus on either of their roles!
I would say that I am not against moving people from within an organization to be scrum master (they don't have to be sourced externally) but I would personally suggest getting someone that was previously a little detached from the developers to be the SM.


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