Who is the ScrumMaster?

One area where we have deviated from Scrum is in terms of how we apply the role of ScrumMaster. According to Scrum, one person takes on the role of ScrumMaster to facilitate the team on a day to day basis. The ScrumMaster doesn't do anything else because just the workload of ScrumMaster is a full time job.

In our first Sprint, I assumed the role of ScrumMaster. Indeed, after a couple weeks, I found that I was spending a lot of time researching Scrum running Scrum meetings, and updating the backlog spreadsheet and graphs. I needed more time to get my own backlog done as I was falling behind. We decided to rotate the ScrumMaster role around the team. One of the key factors in this decision was that we had a large backlog, so no one person could really be asked to give up writing to just be a ScrumMaster.

There were some interesting benefits to this decision:

  • Each person taking on the role introduces new ideas. For example, Howie sent out a daily summary email of the Scrum meeting with attached backlog notes. This helped keep the backlog visible.
  • Each person taking on the role learns Scrum. In a sense, the whole team becomes self-educated about Scrum, which I believe leads to better self-management.
  • New members on the team also learn about the role and about Scrum. And everyone pitches in to help the new person in the ScrumMaster role.
  • Someone always has the ability to fill in as “backup” if the ScrumMaster is out sick.
    We continue to rotate the ScrumMaster role today. Currently we assign the role to one person each week. We evaluate the decision in our retrospectives, and maybe someday we'll change to a full time ScrumMaster. But for now it is working.

I think if a team is new to Scrum and doesn't have a certified ScrumMaster or any Scrum expert, this is a useful way to get the team started and educated on Scrum.

-davech