Frankly speaking, I don’t believe in non tech scrum masters. They usually don’t understand what is going on, asks stupid questions, propose solutions that they not understand. In addition, scrum and agile manifest was founded by tech people (like Kent Beck, Martin Fowler, Robert C. Martin, Ken Schwaber) with deep understanding of software development life cycle. And now sometime scrum master is treated as an entry point to IT.
On the other hand when we have scrum master with deep software developement experience then I think this can be really valuable addition to the team. But of course if he/she in fact had a chance to feel problems that Scrum/Agile supposed to solve.
Non tech scrum master tends to ask and propose strange solutions, like:
- Use CRUD (create, read, update, delete) strategy to divide project in smaller tasks when whole tasks is about new read model…
- Avoid large tasks at all costs even without understanding that splitting given part does not make sens, make developing and testing harder
In addition non tech scrum master is usually the person that does not deliver any value at all and you can ask yourseflf what does a scrum master do whole day? That is way I much prefer to have scrum master with real experience in IT world and having two responsiblities, for example
- Being a developer + scrum master
- Being a software tester + scrum master
Not seperate role, when it is first time working in IT.
What is more non-tech scrum masters sometimes event don’t know scrum guide (14 pages…), and they trying to convince you something that even scrum guid does not mentions saying that’s it in scrum guide.
It was not a real scrum – does it sound familiar?
What is more I often hear that it was not real scrum. For me tools are for given purpose, we cannot do it something for sake of doing something. If it not works let’s not do it, instead of blindly following some rules. Yes it is worth to know them, but for me winning point is to know when to not use them, instead of using them all the time.
So, scrum is a scam?
I’m not saying that. But with implementation that scrum is lead by people who never experience problems that scrum is trying to solve then it won’t work. And it may be scam.
2 replies on “Non tech scrum master is a scam”
Couldn’t agree more
I get where you’re coming from, but calling non-tech scrum masters a “scam” is a bit harsh. While it’s true that technical knowledge can enhance a scrum master’s effectiveness, not every team needs a tech person leading them. Scrum is as much about facilitation and teamwork as it is about understanding code. Non-tech scrum masters can bring valuable skills in communication and conflict resolution that help the team thrive.