[VLOG] What Are the Differences Between Agile Coach & Scrum Master (Myth Bust)

(Australia)

January 16, 2020

Hi awesome people. Courage is one of the Scrum Values and as part of my New Year's resolution this year I would like to have more courage to point out the elephant in the room at the risk people may dislike me for doing it. I would also would like to have more courage to enter more healthy passionate debate this year.

Speaking up about the differences between Agile Coach and Scrum Master is one of my fears because often times talking about this topic with other agile practitioners can be quite tense - like what I experienced last year with an Agile Coach whom I worked with for a transformation initiatives. I have also found there are a lot of misconceptions about the Scrum Master role in the industry and also on the internet sphere. The Scrum Master role is often times watered down to not more than just the team's personal assistant.

Today, I am taking the courage to push the button to speak about the misconceptions about the Agile Coach and Scrum Master comparisons found on the internet. It's going to be controversial and I expect disagreements and dislikes. If you have the time, please watch my latest vlog. And as usual feedback is appreciated. Enjoy and thank you.

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Comments (6)

Haitham Zaki

08:41 am January 17, 2020

Agree with you Joshua, Scrum Masters should serve and be aligned with the organization as well as the team, and they should use the scrum framework as a container for the suitable practice for specific project or task, the Agile Coach is responsible for transformation of all levels at the organization in terms of mindset, culture and processes, throughout knowing the organization existing environment and start working transversally in the transformation

Joshua Partogi

04:27 am January 18, 2020

Hi @disqus_dXaRllICTp:disqus . Scrum Masters should also work on transformation of all levels in the company. The point is, there are no differences between Scrum Master and Agile Coach.

Darren Thatcher

10:44 am January 18, 2020

I agree with you because it's even in the Scrum guide that part of the role of a Scrum Master is to help the organisation understand Scrum

An agile coach understands the essence of thinking and behaving behind the agile Manifesto.

A Scrum Master understands the thinking, behaving and design of the Scrum process control framework.

Scrum is a popular brand of agile hence as they dovetail nicely

Yes I could agree that some people can switch the roles easily: I can for example because I have a deep understanding of both. But not everyone does, although I would argue that a good Scrum Master should, and would, have a deep understanding of the back thinking behind the agile Manifesto and vice versa. Indeed, Ken and Jeff, Co founders of Scrum, are two of those seventeen people that came together in 2001 to discuss and create the agile Manifesto.

Joshua Partogi

12:38 pm January 19, 2020

That is right @darrenthatcher:disqus . Scrum Master and Agile Coach is no difference because Ken and Jeff was also the Agile Manifesto signatories who influenced the thinking behind it.

Evan Ho

02:30 pm June 10, 2020

while we can argue the two roles are similar, the market expectation for those two roles are different - when a company hire a scrum master they expect the person to solve team level matters, whereas the company would expect an agile coach to solve enterprise problem to connect teams, coach executives. A good scrum master is capable of doing some/all responsibilities agile coach takes, in that case by definition the scrum master is an agile coach and should be paid as an agile coach.

mohamed chibani

04:19 pm June 29, 2022

I believe the only difference is that the SM is bound to a specific framework (which is obviously Scrum). However, an agile coach is not bound to any framework, and should only adhere to the manifesto values and principals.