For teams doing scrum, without a scrum master
I had a client ask me the other day if it was ok to “rotate” the scrum master role since they don’t have a dedicated one. He felt strongly this was the right approach. Partially to lesson the distraction to one team member and also to have the “full team” engaged and owning the process.
Setting aside the issue of not having a dedicated scrum master job role…. I have a couple of concerns with this approach. The first one is that this is really an ideal and advanced state for a team. If you have a team that works well together and is already demonstrating the lean/agile values and principles consistently, then it’s probably not a problem to have folks rotate this role because the team has proven the ability to “self manage” in this respect. However, if you have a team that still has many improvement areas (most teams :)) then I believe adding a rotation isn’t the best option. You would be better off finding someone who wants to do the role and who has some natural skills and then training and supporting them.
Good scrum masters do much more than just run ceremonies or moderate discussions. Strong scrum masters inject some coaching, ensure the team is following lean/agile principles and has the ability to steer the team in the right direction – both in terms of process and the work.
Some scrum masters just fill a role and do coordination and moderating but let the team proceed without the coaching/steering aspect. And with this, if a team needs a lot of growth it’s not the optimal way to get there quickly.
In summary, my opinion is that rotating a scrum master “role” is typically not optimal. It is frequently the easier way to avoid putting a dedicated resource in place for it. And as a result you will likely experience slower growth of the team in terms of performance and lean/agile adoption. If you have the rare luxury of an advanced team that has already proven itself capable of “self management” then congratulations!
Work-Agile 