Scrum Masters are Grown, not Born

#1

I’m a big fan of Lyssa’s work, and she really hits the nail on the head with this. But it brings up an interesting thought exercise…if we re-brand scrum masters as “Agile Team Coaches”…what does that do to the Consultant Coaching Industrial Complex?

#2

Agree… I think the first few years of the journey, the “Scrum Master” is a person growing their skillset but competent enough to keep a team stable and focused. As the year’s pass, I fully expect that person develop the skills of a team coach and be able to do more than “just hold it together”, otherwise they aren’t growing.

I would love to see Agile Team Coach be the ladder above Scrum Master and before Guild/Practice Lead, or Enterprise Coach… and I really hope it puts a dent in the coaching industrial complex. If companies are more rigorous in finding team coaches that match their need, they won’t need as much outside consulting.

#3

This isan interesting take on the notions of Scrum Master and Agile Coach.

Having done Lyssa’s bootcamp, I’ll comment that the formal role of Agile Coach seems to be a bit of a misnomer; with coaching being a very specific domain where the coach is “invited in”. IMO, the Agile Coach role often doesn’t have that invitation, and instead is seen as the agile SME.

#4

Absolutely! They’re seen as Agile Gurus, but rarely are they invited into a team, they’re assigned. And knowing what we know about team dynamics and org psych we can guess how it typically plays out.