The Two Duties of a Scrum Master
I'm often asked about Scrum whether a Scrum Master is responsible for delivery or for the process. TL;DR: He's actually responsible for both. The secondary duty of a Scrum Master is delivery. The primary duty of a Scrum Master is the process.
- Author:
- Christian Hujer, Software Crafter and CEO / CTO of Nelkinda Software Craft Private Limited
- First Published:
- by
Nelkinda Software Craft Private Limited - Last Modified:
- by Christian Hujer
- Approximate reading time:
Diagram by Karn G. Bulsuk (http://www.bulsuk.com/)
1 Is a Scrum Master Responsible for Delivery?
When coaching and consulting about Scrum, I'm sometimes asked whether a Scrum Master is actually responsible for delivery. Yes, with the exception of the Product Owner, they are more responsible for delivery than anybody else in the team. What, in the end, is the value of a Scrum Master if they do not achieve that the team delivers?
But delivery is not their only responsibility. To achieve delivery, the team must find and agree on a process that ensures delivery. There are many reasons why this process may have to change or otherwise need constant attention.
- Insights from retrospectives and other sources of feedback need improvements of the process.
- The market changes.
- The team changes, team members leave, new team members join.
- The client contact changes.
- Team members become sloppy over time.
- The team learns new methods and technologies.
This leads to the following thought model about the Two Duties of a Scrum Master. The thought model is inspired by Robert C. Martin's Two Values of Software from [Clean Code Episode 9].
2 The Two Duties of a Scrum Master
2.1 The Secondary Duty of a Scrum Master
The Secondary Duty of a Scrum Master is important, very important. But, delivering competitively needs constant adaption and improvement of the process.
2.2 The Primary Duty of a Scrum Master
The Secondary Duty of a Scrum Master, that is, Delivery, is only achieved over and over again if continuous adaption and inspection of the process happens. The Secondary Duty of a Scrum Master depends on the Primary Duty of a Scrum Master. That's why continuously improving the process is the Primary Duty of a Scrum Master.
3 And the Product Owner?
Yes, the Product Owner is also responsible for Delivery. For the Product Owner, Delivery is the Primary Duty. However, that does not relieve the Scrum Master of its Secondary Duty. Let's for a moment hypothetically assume that only the Product Owner, not the Scrum Master, is responsible for Delivery. How would a Scrum Master know that they are successful? In the end, what is useful to business? Let's remember a few of the Principles behind the Agile Manifesto.
Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
Working software is the primary measure of progress.
A Scrum Master also has to defend the Agile Values and Agile Principles from the [Agile Manifesto]. Therefore, a Scrum Master cannot and must not ignore Delivery.
4 Some other Duties
Here's a few more duties of a Scrum Master, in no particular order, and without any attempt of completeness. Note that all these duties are facets of the Primary and the Secondary Duty.
- Ensure that the Scrum Team follows the Agile Values and Agile Principles.
- Create Transparency to the Stakeholders.
- Build Trust of the Stakeholders into the Development Team and vice versa.
- Defend the Process.
- Defend the Team.
- Remove Impediments
4.1 But Robert C. Martin said…
A Scrum Master was a coach. A Scrum Master was not a manager, explicitly not a manager, not supposed to be a manager. The Scrum Master was responsible for defending the process, but nothing else. He did not defend the schedule, he did not defend the budget, he did not defend the stories, he did not defend the backlog. He only defended the process, he or she.
That emphasizes on the Scrum Master's duty towards the process. But it does not relief the Scrum Master of their responsibility of Delivery.