The danger of separating the Scrum Master and the Agile Coach roles
The separation of the Scrum Master and the Agile Coach into separate functions is quite well established. In this article, I argue that this situation actually endangers Agile.
I work in a company where the idea has been developed to get rid of the Scrum Master. Scrum Masters will be invited to become Agile Coaches. The Scrum Master will be relegated to a role to be picked up by a member of the team. So for example, a developer will take care of the Scrum Master role on the side.
Personally, I don’t make the distinction between the Scrum Master and the Agile Coach role, so this idea initially did not bother me much. I would just become an Agile Coach to ensure I can carry on working full-time in the role of a Scrum Master and problem solved! For the rest, nothing would change for me. As always, the needs and maturity of my teams will determine whether I focus on one or more of them as a dedicated Scrum Master. The type of impediments and problems they face will determine how much time I spend on the outside of the team, acting as an Agile Coach.
I realise that some will say that the distinction between the Scrum Master and the Agile Coach is appropriate, simply because the Scrum Master belongs to Scrum, while an Agile Coach uses Scrum as one of many tools.
Personally, I think that any Scrum Master who really dedicates themselves to the journey towards Personal Mastery will eventually see the value of adding other frameworks and methodologies to their toolbox. In that sense, I find that a Scrum Master who has progressed far enough in their journey is also perfectly fit to coach a team in their use of Kanban. Whether we should call her a Scrum Master or an Agile Coach in this context becomes a question of semantics, which has nothing to do with the point I want to make here.
What I am interested in talking about is the way the Scrum Master seems to operate outside the organisational hierarchy.
Think about it, the Scrum Guide very clearly describes the focus of the Scrum Master on the team, but also his responsibility to the rest of the organisation. This doesn’t fit with the way jobs are normally formulated, where a job has a specific place in the hierarchy with a corresponding authority.
Why does Scrum do this?
Let's examine the role (accountability) more closely. We have two very simple rules in the Scrum Guide:
“The Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness”,
“Scrum Masters are true leaders who serve the Scrum Team and the larger organization”.
With these two rules, a budding Scrum Master grows, starting off with her whole attention on the team, solving problems tightly tied to the team itself. Gradually she expands her horizons as she discovers more and more of the complex system which is a Scrum team, gradually following the cause of the problems further and further, eventually leading her far outside the team.
This evolution is grounded on the fact that wherever the Scrum Master operates, she always maintains a direct connection between any initiative at any level of the organisation and its impact on the team. This becomes a habit, a basic premise that is ingrained into the minds of Scrum Masters, very much like the Scrum guide or the Agile Manifesto.
To be clear, in this context, a Scrum Master evolves into a kind of super Scrum Master, an Agile Coach, able to guide and coach adolescent Scrum Masters within teams. In this sense, splitting the Scrum Master and Agile Coach is certainly an option. My point is that this is very much an organic choice for the participants themselves. This is completely separate from a prescriptive HR approach in which the separation is formal and restrictive, done at the entry point, and entirely removed from the evolution of the person in question!
Focus on the team and value delivery
The organisational independence of the Scrum Master has a huge impact. It means that a Scrum Master has by definition and practice, complete independence from the established system. Sure, the established system, especially a hierarchical system, will make her life terribly difficult, and her goals neigh impossible, as it tries to force her to conform. But motivated by her absolute focus on the effectiveness of the team she will always be encouraged to work to find ways of bending the established system to her will. It is in this way that activism and leadership are nurtured, reinforcing the independence from the system and the focus on doing what is necessary.
With the Scrum Master role, we are in fact solving the problem of the Iceberg of Ignorance, which tells us there is a dysfunctional distance between those who are aware of the problems that exist, and those with the authority to do something about it. The Scrum Master connects them. Talk about a huge impact indeed!
Authority mediator
But the impact goes further. The Scrum Master helps those with authority to realise two things:
their lack of control and how little they know about problems and their impact,
the bottleneck they form and how delegating authority is a solution to this problem.
The Scrum Master functions as a mediator of authority, connecting authority to the needs of the work floor and by doing so, automatically coaching managers to become agile leaders.
Of all the things that Agile advocates, I think this is the most important change we are trying to achieve. In essence, I think Agile is about a transition of authority from the bureaucratic hierarchy; those distant from the experience of the problems; to the people on the work floor; those directly confronted with the problems and with the expertise to fix them.
Catalyst for Agile Change
Finally, I see the Scrum Master as the perfect catalyst for a change towards Agility. To me, the way the Scrum Master operates, both by design and by implementation, is a clear example of how the Agile way of working could be shaped.
The Scrum Master role is essential because if we want to really achieve a change towards Agile, the biggest challenge is offering an alternative to the rigid and fully entrenched traditional system we have worked with until now: the hierarchy with fixed roles and fixed authority.
There are in fact too many things in Agile that distract us from this challenge. Talking about Agile we usually talk about methodologies and processes, and it is easy to get lost in those. It is our natural tendency. In fact, those aspects of Agile sometimes fit too nicely in the old process-driven methodologies. I guess that is why SAFe is so popular?
We need the Scrum Master and the way she operates to remind us of how big the change really is. To remind us it is about people and interactions, not about processes and tools. The Scrum Master disrupts the established system and in doing so reminds us continuously of what really needs to happen.
Leadership becomes an act, and is no longer the privilege of a single role
- tameflow
The Scrum Master is our revolutionary, our Ché Guevarra. She will not stop until everyone embraces Agile.
The Scrum Master
So, summarising:
a Scrum Master is driven by a clear and uncompromising focus on that which helps the team, and is therefore tied intimately to the work floor: the place where value is created,
Prioritisation is tightly related to the impact the problem has on the team, providing a crystal-clear mechanism to make choices,
a Scrum Master operates outside the system, focusing on any problem at any level that affects her team,
a Scrum Master is able to recruit people and claim resources at all levels in the company.
This is the reason splitting the role to suit the hierarchical structure is so incredibly dangerous. By doing so two things happen.
First of all the Agile Coach is encouraged to become a managerial position. Removed from the teams. Agile Coach becomes the boss of the Scrum Master, telling them how to do their work. Obviously, Agile Coaches will not communicate with the teams directly but expect the Scrum Masters to act as proxies. Write reports and deliver metrics. Realise targets and OKR’s.
Second, the Scrum Master, as a hybrid role, becomes a hobby on the side, mainly focused on enforcing the events and reporting metrics. Unempowered and saddled with more important responsibilities related to their daily productivity, the role becomes an afterthought. The real function of the Scrum Master is never realised.
What does this remind you of? Oh yes, that’s the way we do things right now! Command and Control. Divide & Conquer. That is exactly what we are trying to fix with Agile!
Separating the Scrum Master and Agile Coach literally reinforces the very system we are trying to change.
I see a situation where Scrum Masters are basically tempted with money and status to sell their Agile souls and join the ranks of management. In the process, we destroy the most important example we have of an Agile way of working: a different way of organising focus and authority. We lose an activist role designed to break through the established systems and push the change to an Agile way of working.
This is so deviously ingenious a scenario that it would actually make a brilliant theme for a James Bond movie. People unwittingly working to realise their own apocalypse! It seems so utterly evil that it invites conspiracy theories, just to relieve us of the idea this could happen naturally, organically.
Conclusion
Stepping back from this nightmare scenario, the worst that could happen, I am stuck with a personal dilemma: if I should become an Agile Coach, affording me the authority I need to achieve my goals, will I be able to hold on to my Agile idealism? Is it possible, even with the best intentions, to not be formed by the role, the authority, and the position I would be given?
“We shape our tools and, thereafter, our tools shape us.”
I think maybe this is the most important thing we learn as Scrum Masters, that it is not the people that are the problem, but the system they are trapped in.
I mean, all my colleagues, including those in management are fine people, full of integrity and purpose. They support me in my idealism and believe in the new Agile way. They have dreams of their own and many of them have kids who will join the workforce sometime. They are definitely not evil, simply formed by the system they work in, the daily pressures that the system subjects them to.
Why should I, isolated from the team and embraced by the system, be any different from them?
I take comfort in the Agile Coaches I know who do manage to maintain their integrity and Ché Guevarra the hell out of the organisations they work in.
Maybe being aware of the dilemma and the danger to Agile is enough to help us keep our course?