Is There a Future for Scrum Masters? Why Are Many Organizations Getting Rid of Explicit Agile Roles?

Agile has been around for almost 20 years, and so does Scrum. First, it was a mysterious study, almost like a martial arts. People knew about Scrum Masters, but none had seen a good one. Then, it became popular, and everyone wanted to do an Agile transformation in their organization. Now, every team had a Scrum Master and an Agile Coach leading them.

The next step was the creation of more than ten bodies that “certify” scrum masters and promise that the holders of their credentials are professionals ready to join your organization and help you turn the sheep in the VUCA ocean. Even traditional institutes such as PMI became interested in Agile and created specific tracks for Agile professionals in their network of credentials.

But the popularity is fading. Recently, some huge organizations that took Agile seriously started reconsidering its approach. Some of them laid off the entire population of Scrum Masters. Others gave them a choice to get an additional role, leaving scrum mastership as a valuable supporting skill.

The other option was to switch to Agile Coaches or some made-up leaders in Business Agility, not on the team level but in the business unit. The main direction is clear: in the cost of living crisis and unstable economic environment, only some people are ready to pay a full-time, almost engineering, salary to an Agile professional. But what has happened?

Cost Cutting

Yes, the environment is indeed unstable. We have been in a high interest rate environment for quite some time, and it is now more complex than ever for organizations to raise capital. Therefore, they are ready to do that if there is an opportunity to cut costs. And the role that generates barely any value from the balance sheet perspective is almost a no-brainer. The teams are mature enough to coach themselves without external help, aren’t they?

It is hard to say for sure. The overall business environment is fading, and getting an offer from a competitor is more challenging. Having a second remote job during the worst of the pandemic is almost impossible. It is now much easier for an organization to delegate some responsibilities that were a specific role previously to an engineer - they have little choice except to take it and sustain a decent level of understanding.

Fewer organizations are now ready to fund Agile coaching or coaching in general separately. This is now the bare minimum expectation for any line manager or a person who leads/manages the product.

Evolution of Tech Roles

Ten years ago, a fresh graduate from the University who had some basic coding skills and could solve a couple of algorithms joined an organization and became a software engineer. This is not valid anymore. Over the past twenty years, an industry has taught enough engineers to require freshers to have substantial knowledge not only in their primary occupation but also be T-shaped - have basic knowledge in related technologies and even methodologies of software development management.

If you are an engineer who started less than five years ago, you probably have yet to work in a true waterfall organization. Considering that most companies never truly achieve Agility, you know as much as most Agile professionals know anyway.

It is not enough anymore to know the Scrum Guide by heart to become a Master and then survive two years in a role to become an Agile Coach, nor to efficiently teach and guide the team on ways of working. Pretty much all roles need to be widely skilled in the primary tooling of their teams, whether these are hard programming skills or the ability to get and present data that can help to make a product steering.

It does help, either, that many of the Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches come from non-technical backgrounds. Pushing for advancement by utilizing technical tools - whether this is DevOps practices, AI, or something else - is now required.

Certifications and Buzzwords

As previously mentioned, at least ten bodies do Agile-only certifications and broader organizations specializing in project management now provide the training and credentials. While this is good for further awareness, the Scrum guide outlines the problem - “Easy to learn, hard to master.”

It has been quite a long time since so-called professionals who have done an online course and gotten certification have tried to change an organization drastically. In reality, they created fake agility and followed the guide without any consideration. This led to the creation of a widespread phenomena called Zombie Scrum.

While many are certified, they do not always have the necessary background to operate in the VUCA world, which is becoming more competitive and requires excellence to beat competitors.

Of course, do not get me wrong, even some basic concept if implemented according to the book might work - but in most cases, it didn’t go further than rebranding the names and reshuffling the development teams.

Conclusion

Is it over for Agile? Certainly not. Is it over for Scrum Master? Not really. Fundamental principles agreed over 20 years ago on a ski resort are still popular. How we implement them and use them to our advantage has definitely changed, and now it is more crucial to evaluate what is needed and what can be trimmed without success. You are safe if you can get new skills and bring value to the team and organization.

But if the only contribution someone has made to your company is meeting facilitation and a weekly email with a velocity newsletter, they should be worried.