Comments on: Why Product Owners Need Effective Scrum Masters

By: Roman Pichler

Roman Pichler — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 07:16:57 +0000

Thanks for sharing your perspective Gary.

By: Gary K Evans

Gary K Evans — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 18:49:59 +0000

I have been in Agile for over 20 years and 15 of those as a Scrum Master/Coach. Regarding the number of teams a given Scrum Master can facilitate, for myself I have found my upper bound to be “2”. This is my limit to be effective, and my effectiveness falls quickly at “3”. Serving one or two teams in all of the many personas a Scrum Master should fulfill requires investment in the team: teaching, guiding, and protecting. I have heard SMs who said they could handle four or five teams concurrently, but when I observed them it was apparent they were not facilitating any single team effectively. Scrum Masters should be careful how far they stretch themselves across multiple teams.

By: Roman Pichler

Roman Pichler — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 14:18:46 +0000

In reply to Smaranda.

Thanks for your feedback and question Smaranda. When you consider to hire a Scrum Master, I would primarily look at the teams’ and organisations’ ability to effectively apply agile practices. The better the teams are at applying Scrum and achieving the agreed outcomes, the fewer Scrum Masters you will need. And the better an organisation is at supporting the teams and creating the right environment for them, the smaller the number of Scrum Masters can be. But if you want to practice Scrum, you will need at least one Scrum Master. An experienced Scrum Master should know more than the Scrum framework and also be able to apply a Kanban-based process. Hope this helps.

By: Roman Pichler

Roman Pichler — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 14:13:02 +0000

In reply to Basti Witsker. Thanks for sharing your question Basti. Strictly speaking, a Scrum Master should not manage a team at all. Instead, the individual should help the teams to practice self-management. How many teams a single Scrum Master can support depends on four factors in my experience:

The state of the teams;
The state of the organisation;
The expertise of the Scrum Master
The amount of the time the person can dedicate to the role;

The better the team and organisation are at applying agile principle and practices and the more expertise and availability the Scrum Master has, the more teams the individual can look after. I can't remember, though, that I have seen a Scrum Master who looked after more than 4-5 teams. Hope this helps!

By: Smaranda

Smaranda — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 13:19:37 +0000

All very good points. In practical terms, how large should an R&D department be to justify hiring a full time SCRUM master? 3-4 development teams? Sometimes hiring a very specialized role too early can backfire as that role will create too much process and unnecessary work. Something to also consider is that not all teams have to do SCRUM at all times. Devops or SRE teams might prefer Kanban which can further limit the scope of such a specialized position.

By: Basti Witsker

Basti Witsker — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 09:19:34 +0000

What is your opinion about how many teams a Scrum Master should manage? And what kind of knowledge about the product and the desired outcomes should the Scrum Master have?

By: Roman Pichler

Roman Pichler — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 14:55:46 +0000

In reply to Robert.

Thank you for sharing your experience Robert. I hope that you will soon be able to focus on one of the roles.

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 14:21:38 +0000

A couple years ago, I told my then-manager that I wanted to be a Scrum Master (I was currently a business analyst on a product team). My manager said sure, then made me a PM and BA on a different product team, and since then I’ve been expected to fill all three roles (with SM the lowest priority). As a result, I feel like I’m doing all three roles in a mediocre fashion and not nearly as effectively as I could if I had just the SM role. I can definitely relate with your definition of what a SM should and should not be doing.