Many organizations misinterpret success as making the Scrum Master obsolete. It sounds efficient, but it removes the very accountability that sustains empiricism. The Scrum Master’s role doesn’t vanish when a team becomes self-managing. Their focus shifts from facilitation to coaching, from team habits to organizational change, from removing blockers to transforming systems. They serve the Scrum Team, the Product Owner, and the organization. When they evolve their focus, agility scales. When they disappear, complacency takes their place.

Many companies water down the Scrum Master by splitting the accountability across teams, making it a side hustle, or rotating it each Sprint. It feels efficient but strips away the very impact that makes Scrum work. The Scrum Master isn’t about booking meetings, being a Jira jockey, or tracking velocity. Their true value is coaching, enabling team effectiveness, defending empiricism, protecting quality, surfacing dysfunction, and serving the organization. They don’t need to be full-time every minute, but they must be dedicated and focused. Cutting corners here is the most expensive "savings" you can make.

Many Scrum Teams fall into the trap of assuming there will always be another Sprint. This mindset leads to delay, complacency, and missed opportunities. Treating each Sprint like it could be your last helps teams focus on outcomes, improve continuously, and deliver real value, while they still can.

A Scrum Team thrives when every voice is heard. Facilitators and Scrum Masters play a vital role in making space for quieter team members. With intention and a few well-tested techniques, we can shift the dynamic and bring more perspectives into the conversation. Sometimes the quietest voice in the room has the most important insight. From using silent writing and Liberating Structures to creating psychological safety and embracing silence, these ten approaches empower facilitators to create inclusive environments where all voices are heard. These strategies can help bring forward valuable perspectives that might otherwise go unnoticed, whether you're working with a reflective thinker or someone hesitant to share.

User stories are one way to describe Product Backlog items, but too often they’re misused or forced into every situation. The original intent, from Extreme Programming, was about sparking collaboration through the 3 Cs: Card, Conversation, Confirmation, not filling in a rigid template. Scrum doesn’t prescribe a single format, and alternatives like Job Stories or Hypothesis-Driven Development can be more effective depending on the context. At the end of the day, the value comes from the conversation, not the wording.

The Scrum Master role is at risk of fading away unless the profession changes. Too many organizations misunderstand the accountability, reducing it to administrative tasks instead of leadership. The Scrum Masters who will thrive are those who grow beyond facilitation, actively protect empiricism, influence at the organizational level, and focus on delivering real outcomes. This article explores the challenges facing Scrum Masters today and the skills they need to remain relevant in the years ahead.

This post challenges teams that claim to be Agile by spotlighting one brutally honest metric: Days Since Last Release. Release frequency is a clearer indicator of agility than velocity or story points. By tracking how long it has been since the last release, and striving to keep that number at zero, Scrum Teams can drive better conversations, surface delivery obstacles, and stay focused on what really matters: delivering value frequently.

Not everyone is ready for Scrum. This blog explores common personality types that resist Scrum ways of working, such as The Pessimist, The Perfectionist, and The Order-Taker, and explains why they struggle. You’ll also learn practical ways Scrum Masters can coach these individuals, reduce friction, and guide meaningful change during a Scrum adoption.

Many Scrum Masters fall into the trap of quoting the Scrum Guide verbatim, mistaking recitation for servant leadership. Quoting the rules isn't the same as understanding them. This post explores why simply reading from the Guide can frustrate teammates and stakeholders, lack context, and hinder team growth. Here's what you can do instead. Try taking on a coaching stance to foster understanding through relevance, reflection, and powerful questions. To help teams truly embrace Scrum, the focus must shift from quoting the rules of the game to connecting with the “why.”

The Mid Sprint Check-in, Demo, or Review: these meetings make Scrum much less effective while giving the illusion of control and predictability and may be masking other problems. Does your Scrum Team need another meeting?

The Scrum Team consists of three accountabilities: Developers, Product Owner, and Scrum Master. Yet Scrum Team accountabilities and responsibilities can be confusing, misunderstood, and lack shared understanding between its members and the organization. This exercise makes transparent the accountabilities of each team member by driving conversations about what team members agree on and where there are gaps. Use this exercise when new teams are formed, or when you see misunderstandings and knowledge gaps around Scrum Team accountabilities and expectations.

Great facilitation makes it easier for everyone to participate, collaborate, and find shared understanding to reach the desired objective. Facilitate effective Scrum events and other meetings by starting with a well-thought-out facilitator guide.

The Scrum Guide provides no reference or guidance on how to get started with Scrum. That's because Scrum is a lightweight, minimal framework to encourage self-organization. I have heard it stated that Scrum is intentionally incomplete.

In my role as an Agile coach and Scrum trainer, I get the chance to talk to a lot of Scrum Masters and teams.

When working with teams new to Scrum, one of the questions I usually ask is, "What are your plans to describe non functional requirements (NFRs)?". Typically the Product Owner already has a good handle on functional requirements (i.e.