The Scrum Master should not be constrained by the Scrum framework.#3

The Scrum Guide says:

They do this by enabling the Scrum Team to improve its practices, within the Scrum framework.

This feels like it constrains the Scrum Master to explicitly following the Scrum framework. Perhaps the team is experimenting with mobbing and wants to get rid of an explicit Daily Scrum on certain days because they are spending the majority of the working day working on a single item. Perhaps the team wishes to experiment with a technique more like Shape Up and have 6 week iterations or variable length iterations. Perhaps there are other changes.

The Scrum Master should be familiar with a number of frameworks and methodologies that apply to a team’s environment and can help the team make decisions about practices to experiment with and evaluate their effectiveness.

If the team decides to leave Scrum, then this person would likely no longer be a Scrum Master, but some alternative title. If using Scrum, the Scrum Master seems like the right person to encourage experimentation and continually finding new and better ways of working.

“feels like it constrains the Scrum Master to explicitly following the Scrum framework”

Your feeling and interpretation is not the meaning of the sentence you quote, although I can see how people may read it that way as they may not be familiar with what ‘within the Scrum Framework’ means.

What may happen ‘within the Scrum Framework’ is quite broad:

“Various processes, techniques and methods can be employed within the framework.” - SG

As Scrum is being used, patterns, processes, and insights that fit the Scrum framework, may be found, applied and devised, The Scrum Team will try, appy, improve its practices and this is all done within the framework.

Transparent accountabilities have clear boundaries. This guideline does not prohibit or constrain the person who bears the accountability of the Scrum Master to do more.

What happens when the team wants to go outside the framework, though? I gave two examples - not having a Daily Scrum every day or having iteration lengths longer than 1 month. I’m sure there are others.

I don’t think the Scrum Master should just enable the team to improve within the framework, but also help the team decide when it’s time to abandon the rules of the framework entirely.

@Thomas.j.owens yes and they still can, it is just not their accountability to. Nothing in Scrum prevents anyone from helping individuals beyond what is defined in the framework. It just defines the accountabilities within it. Someone who is a master in Scrum, knows its practice and rules and is capable in guiding others in its play will be capable, as a human being, to doing much more than that, but defining that is outside the scope of Scrum. Scrum doesn’t prescribe what you can (or can’t) do beyond it. I don’t think it should.

@Sjoerd Nijland I agree with you, with what is likely intended. However, the words have some (hopefully) unintended consequences for teams, organizations, and Scrum.

A key factor for Scrum is that people - Scrum Masters, mostly - understand where Scrum is appropriate for use. When it is not appropriate, they coach the team away from Scrum and toward more appropriate frameworks. Saying that Scrum Masters must help a team within the framework implies that, once adopted, the Scrum Master becomes accountable for the team remaining within the bounds of the framework. Forcing a team into a poorly fitting framework does no one any good.

A Scrum Master is just as accountable for identifying a poor fit for Scrum in a team or organization and helping the team recognize that and find a way to get to a more appropriate way of working as they are for helping a team optimize their use of Scrum.

Well the key is in ‘implied’. Many things in Scrum can be implied incorrectly, intentionally or not. It is often implied to mean something different to fit someones agenda. It simply means some energy and communication should go into developing transparency around it.

In this case it means that, yes as a human being, even with the accountability of the Scrum Master, one may consult an organization to move beyond or away from the Scrum Framework. It simply isn’t your accountability as a Scrum Master to do so. But just because you aren’t accountable for it, doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t. the Scrum Guide simply has no say or authority to define accountabilities beyond the Scrum Framework.

A lot of things go wrong when people start making assumptions as to what the Scrum Guide may mean and they will use it to match whatever their agenda is. If it is your agenda to keep your team operating within the Scrum Framework regardless of knowing better, then ultimately the source of the problem is that individual intention.

@Sjoerd Nijland I see where you’re coming from, but my thinking is that the Scrum Guide should help to protect the integrity of Scrum. When a Scrum Master is working with a team and sees the opportunity for experimention beyond Scrum or sees that Scrum is no longer a good fit for the team or organization, the Scrum Master should be accountable of saying this and helping the team or organization move toward a more appropriate framework. There’s no value in using Scrum in places where it is no longer working or where it is not fit for use, and that is actively harmful to Scrum.

When phrasing of can and is so easily misinterpreted to say otherwise, the wording should be changed.

“When phrasing of can and is so easily misinterpreted to say otherwise, the wording should be changed.”

That puts the accountability at the phraser, not the misinterpreter. In a way the meaning of communication is in the response that you get, so if the response is inadequete, then it may warrent rephrasing.

But then who exactly misinterprets this and what is the reason? What is actually happening, and would the misinterpretation, in that context be resolved if it had been rephrased? or could the Scrum Master, who’s accountability it is to master a shared understanding of Scrum, simply clear things up by saying,

“just because the accountabilities in Scrum are limited to Scrum, does not exempt individuals from having other accountabilities or responsibilities that extend the Scrum Framework.”

As Scrum Master is an accountability, not a job title ( i.e someone with job title Head of IT maybe a Scrum Master), I don’t see any issue if that person is no longer called the Scrum Master when the team no longer use Scrum … their job title in the company remain the same regardless whether their team choose to use Scrum or not.

As @Joshua Partogi said, it is an accountability and not a job title. The accountabiliy is specific to the Scrum framework. Anyone that is in the agile world in my view should have different skills. Event at scrum.org we encourage people to use other methods, e.g. Kanban with Scrum.

This thinking is classiclly attributed when people look at Scrum Master as a job title and not an accountbility.

@Brett I definitely agree with Scrum Master as an accountability and not a job title. However, who has the accountability to tell an organization or team that Scrum isn’t a good fit for their context? The only answer that I can see is the Scrum Master. However, the way the accountabilities are worded, the impression that I’ve seen more and more is that the Scrum Master should be forcing Scrum to work for these teams.

It’s an internal team language thing … Let’s say during the weekend, when you and your buddies decide to play rugby, everyone decide who is going to be in each position. When the following weekend you and your buddies decide to play soccer, those rugby positions of course no longer becomes relevant. And you still have accountabilities at home and in your day-to-day life even if you play rugby and soccer during the weekend.

An IT Manager who try to sell Scrum in the company and gets everybody buy in may be elected to be the Scrum Master. When that IT Manager becomes the Scrum Master, that person should know what are the accountabilities of SM so that the team and the organisation know what to expect from the SM. But if nobody wants to play the game of Scrum that IT Manager is not even a Scrum Master. The same as if the team decides to leave Scrum, that IT Manager is no longer a Scrum Master.

I don’t see how the wording accountabilities literally means pushing down Scrum down everyone’s throat.

@Joshua Partogi I don’t understand the relevance of your example.

In my experience, one barrier to the long-term success of Scrum is making sure that Scrum is applied only in places where it makes sense. There are many stories out there of teams and organizations adopting Scrum, trying to force Scrum into their environment, and then saying how awful Scrum is.

There is no one with the explicit esponsibility or accountability of making sure that Scrum is appropriate and fit for use. Once a team has chosen to adopt Scrum, they have someone fulfilling the accountabilities of the Scrum Master. The person with the Scrum Master accountability is the most appropriate person to identify cases where Scrum is not appropriate and help the team and/or organization move to a more appropriate framework or methodology. If the person does not understand the limitations of Scrum or can’t see when Scrum is no longer fit for use, then I’d suggest the Scrum Master is not qualified to take on the role.

It’s less about the team deciding to leave Scrum, but cases where Scrum isn’t appropriate and the team or organization continues to try to abuse or misuse Scrum, forcing it where it doesn’t belong.