ScrumMaster as a team member

[Yuriy Mann]

Hi dear All,

What do you think about ScrumMaster playing also the role of a team
member. That is what if ScrumMaster takes on some design/development
tasks from the same backlog?

Actually, my Danish colleague who has just attended CSM training asked
the trainer about this, and the response was that it does not go
against "conventional" Scrum as long as the SM does not start making
decisions for the team.

But what will you say about "real life"? Did any of you try combining
these roles himself? Were there any real pitfalls?

Thanks in advance!

[Nickolay Gurov]

I do combine.

The major pitfall I would be aware of is that it is often difficult to
draw a line between "acting as a scrum master" and "acting as a team
member". Some actions that I tend to see as performed by me as a team
member could be seen as managerial by other members of the team. That
might slow down the process of empowering the team via self-
management.

Also it is worth mentioning that the scrum master should be able to
balance between the team and the product owner / stakeholders that
might be more difficult in this case.

[Alexey Krivitsky]

my experience with combining was that when i switched from SM to developer
I tend to forget updating BD chart and other stuff so the process suffered.

useful thing though was that I was able to feel rather than just see
the impediments
which helped me understand team's problems.

the better way probably would be to combine SM role with development in pairs
when you still can get some time fulfilling your SM responsibilities

[Mykola Gurov]

Theoretically there's no much difference for time planning between
developing alone or in pairs. IMHO.

[Yuriy Mann]

Thanks for your replies.

Well, IMHO the most difficult problem for me would be to plan my time
reasonably. This is always difficult being a PM or team leader, and
until now it keeps being difficult for me being a SM.

That is when you're a team leader the inflow of your out-of-
development tasks may be the most dense and unpredictable comparing to
the other team members. Hence, it might be rather difficult for you to
plan and fulfill your commitments on development tasks.

It seems to me that a right way could be to serve as an external
developer/expert for the team, to whom the team could 'outsource'
tasks which are not too long or too critical for the sprint to be
completed.

Anyway, I know for sure my benefit in this: to keep my developing
skills in good shape and just because I get a lot of fun from
designing and developing myself. The question is: how to keep it being
useful for the team and fit into Scrum bounds?

> > when you still can get some time fulfilling your SM responsibilities- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Tim Yevgrashyn]

Probably you could do investigations of future problems, some spikes and analysis of incoming requirements.

Also, team may need some internal programming to esablish better Configuration Management, Source management and other internal processes.

 

But, anyhow, I think after few sprints you will be able to see if you can pick a development task or not. The Sprint Review and Retrospective meeting are good time for analysis of how does your time flows out :-)

 

With best regards,
Timofey Yevgrashyn

[Alexander Aizikovsky]

Having a ScrumMaster or another 'high profile' person on a team can
bring down the feeling of team's responsibility.
A perfect team in the agile world is self-organizing committed unit.
A nice article from Jason Yip http://martinfowler.com/articles/itsNotJustStandingUp.html
seems to be on a different subject, but it touches the problem of
ScrumMaster as a team member as well. Look at the following sections:
The underlying theme is self-organization
Rotate the Facilitator
Break Eye Contact
Reporting to the Leader
If you are in this situation you need to be aware of the danger.
Cheers,
Alex

[Alexey Krivitsky]

Alex,

Thanks for this info.
My experience confirms that presence of a manager (lead, or however
you'd call him/her) jeopardizes team's chance to jell and
self-organize.
But I think here can't be yes or no answer on whether a SM should be
in the team or not.

What matters is that eventually as the team learns how to do Scrums,
the SM should become useless. So the sooner SM can make the team do
Scrum without his/her support - the better. If this can be achieved by
participating in coding/designs - fine...

// Alexey

[Alexander Aizikovsky]

On Apr 4, 9:48 am, "Alexey Krivitsky" <alexeykrivit...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Alex,
>

> What matters is that eventually as the team learns how to do Scrums,
> the SM should become useless. So the sooner SM can make the team do
> Scrum without his/her support - the better. If this can be achieved by
> participating in coding/designs - fine...

No matter how good a team is (with or without Scrum), it always can be
better. Same goes for SM or any other person or group.
We were lucky to work with some exceptionally good consultants. Each
of them has its own opinion on development (changing over time).
Sometimes these opinions were contradicting to each other. But
consultants' impact on the team was huge and positive. You can
consider them as part time SMs (or rather coaches, because we have had
more XP-like process).
If there is a choice I wouldn't take your advise of a team working
without SM literally. If the team learned everything SM could teach
it, it's time to move on. Either SM think of something else to
suggest, or it's better to get a new one.
Cheers,