Can You Be a Part-Time Scrum Master?

Nice blog post with good arguments.

I miss the argument that these facilitator tasks take valuable development time influencing development capacity. In my opinion most important task of the scrummaster is to help the team maximize developments that can be done.

Thanks for the post. It is quite a good topic because it is really open for ideas and discussion. It will be good to hear from everyone what their experiences were.

I agree on the fact that if you need a scrum master that needs to coach scrum members and even the organization itself, then the responsibilities of a scrum master is too much to be a part-time. However, not all organizations need that much of coaching and not all of them are in a transition phase but already implementing Scrum with mature agility. When this is the case, it is not very frequent that you would need coaching or support from scrum master. Even if you have someone new coming into the team, that member is organically trained by the whole team. I saw this happening even with a new product owner. The product owner was trained by the existing flow of the team and just adapted. (how this team achieved this maturity is about Scrum values but it is another topic to discuss)

With all the things I mentioned above, I do sometimes advice that a tester / developer can act as the scrum master. However, that person should have the capabilities and the skill set of a scrum master, and absolutely be certified with proper training. Additionally, s/he should be given less story points during the sprint compared to peers, to allow time allocation for scrum master responsibilities.

I've yet to see an organization that wouldn't benefit from the ongoing support and insight of a good Scrum Master.

Certification is a small measure of knowledge and ability. There are plenty of people who are certified yet lack basic understanding of the values and principles; there are a lot of people without certification who live the philosophy better than most.

Perhaps it is just poor phrasing, but "S/He should be given less points" is not a Scrum-based statement. Who is "giving" work to a Development Team member? "Time allocation" raises concerns of the 100% utilization myth. Hearing these type of statements and having a discussion would probably root to more valid concerns regarding decreased focus and poorly executing each role (point three).

Ideally a Scrum Master should facilitate only when necessary and should not be constantly driving events. Sprint Planning can be conducted collaboratively by the Development Team and Product Owner. The Daily Scrum event should be Development Team members only. Sprint Reviews can be facilitated by a Product Owner. The Scrum Master is a peer in the Sprint Retrospective. You are correct that if facilitation is needed or helpful then the impact of reducing the capacity of a Development Tram member should be noted and addressed.

This another good article reciting what should be common sense. One issue is the distinction of roles "Developer" and "Tester" when setting context for the answer.

I agree with your comment about "given less points", it is usually not very easy to choose the correct words when it is not your native language. I usually save a draft and read again to overcome this but I haven't done it that time. I put that phrase forward to warn senior managers of expecting the same technical output even if scrum master responsibilities are given. Certification is the easiest way to prove knowledge about the theory. It helps when you have to check too many CVs and can only invite a few for interview. Some companies are in a level of being a training center rather than needing a scrum master to coach them. Not many, but there are.

Hi Barry,

Thanks for the great post. In my particular case, when we started implementing Scrum in our company I was appointed to be the Scrum Master for 10 teams, which soon proved to be a another lesson learned for us. For a couple of months, my work has shifted to train and coach new Scrum Masters so that we can get dedicated full time SMs for each team.

Even after a couple of Sprints I've can noticed how having these army of full time SMs has improved the performance of some teams and highlight areas that we need to work on for other teams.

No worries. Language is tricky, even when it is native. :-) I care a lot, some might say too much, about semantics. However I believe that meaning are important for developing understanding. Also important is feedback loops, just like this conversation.

Before I earned my PSM, I was correcting a long-time PSM holding Agile Coach and a ten year Graduate level Agile instructor at Carnegie Melon (who is now a PST).. A little bit of book knowledge and the ability to take a test does not exemplify understanding. Not all certificate holders are like that of course, but too many are IMO.

Hi Barry,

What's your view on a Scrum Master that has two teams? That's my case right now, and I imagine your answer would also be "It's possible, but not recommended," however, would love to hear your thoughts on it.

Thanks!
Andre

Hi Andre, actually... you've made the right assumption about my answer :)
I'll explain it in more detail in an upcoming blog post. Stay tuned!

Would you say that this is less of a problem if I am starting as a part-time Scrum Master on a different development team? I understand the conflict of interest in having a Scrum Master be a different role while on the same team, but I'm interested to hear if this helps some of your concerns from the post.

Great insight Berry,

I found your post to be relevant still, roughly two years later as I grow in my scrum knowledge daily. Working across multiple industries,such as energy and banking the adaptation of scrum in my opinion requires a full time commitment. While in theory yes, part time is possible just as you pointed out. I do not see how a true scrum practitioner could be a servant leader to multiple scrum teams with a part time commitment.

Your concern is valid as capacity utilization has been one of the focused area in traditional way. We can ponder over few questions-
1) Utilization of 10 PD/sprint of SM is bigger concern or efficient service of a servant leader to team, PO and organization is?
2) How efficient is SM in resolving conflicts in team if he too has a conflict of interest? How seriously do the development team take the scrum master for his part time role?
3) When Scrum master is a developer then his relationship with PO is constraint to his stories. We need to ask if the SM knows - the rest of PB items are in good shape, PO is managing the stakeholders and SM is focused towards overall business value rather than his own stories, no matter how small work (story point) is assigned to him.
4) Lastly, look at each scrum values and analyze if they are compromised - Courage, Focus, commitment, Respect and Openness.

I work for an organization where Scrum Master is a role that anyone in the Scrum Team can take. Currently, in my team it is owned by one of our developers and I can clearly see how important it is for a Scrum Master to not-be part-time.

When it is a role played, the person often tend to overlook the minute details in the progress of work. They will be more focused on their contribution towards the Sprint Backlog and the Sprint Goal. They miss the big picture about how important it is to "look-from-above" and understand the things that affect Sprint Goal. Moreover, during the Sprint Retrospective meetings, the Scrum Master ends up juggling between the two (Scrum Master & Developer) while trying to identify things to improve. E.g., when there was a spill over of work due to delay in system set up by another developer, the Scrum Master without digging deep to identify how we can prevent this in the future, thinks from a Developer's point of view and either tries to guard the person or tries to blame the person for not doing it differently.

These are some things I see during Releases which make me also feel like I support your recommendation.

Hi Barry,
Thank you for such a great post. It is proved that SMs should be in full time to get involved in Dev team and give process change requests as per the instructions from the product owner.

There is a new question arise : Scrum Master can work remote?

THis is really insightful, as part time scrum master may be common in some organizations.