Hey Scrum Master... Are you my manager? - Mike Cohn
Back when my girls were small, I used to read Dr. Seuss books to them. Together, we giggled over the antics in the Cat in the Hat and shed a few tears over the destruction in The Lorax.
But a question I got asked in a class recently brought me back to another childhood classic from the Dr. Seuss brand, “Are You My Mother?” It’s a simple story about a newly hatched baby bird that sets out on a quest to find their mother. (Don’t worry, the baby bird is eventually reunited with their actual mother.)
I think newly hatched Scrum teams (and sometimes the people forming those teams) can feel as lost as the baby bird in that story. Why? Because without fail, one of the first questions they ask of or about their Scrum Master is, “Are you my manager?”
In the words of the book, the correct answer is, “No. I am not your manager. I am a Scrum Master.”
The confusion is natural because good Scrum Masters do perform some of the same functions good managers do:
- They motivate and encourage people to do their best work.
- They look out for the team’s mental health by avoiding excessive deadline pressure.
- They remove impediments to progress.
- They improve a team's collaboration and teamwork and more.
- Scrum Masters don't assign tasks or allocate people to projects
- They don't pick due dates for tasks or projects
- And, most importantly, Scrum Masters do not assume responsibility for a team's work. The responsibility for the team’s work resides with the team members.
But Scrum Masters are unlike managers, too:
If you find your teammates acting as though the Scrum Master is their manager, discuss it immediately rather than waiting for a retrospective. Quickly getting on the same page about how Scrum roles compare to traditional roles will help you and your team succeed with agile,
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