Thinking about holding the Scrum Master and Developer roles at the same time? John McFadyen walks us through his perspective on whether Scrum Masters can also be developers.   

A scrum master is independent of the development team and works with the product owner to help the development team create products and services that truly delight customers.  

In some rare cases, a Scrum Master is also a developer.  

In my experience, this can be a double-edged sword.  

As a developer, you would be actively involved in solving problems and determining how best to create a product or service. You would have the deep domain knowledge of a developer and be actively working with others within the team to come up with solutions to the problems you face.  

That level of immersion in the problems and product creation process is not the job of a Scrum Master. A scrum master works with the team to create an environment where others can succeed and acts to remove impediments that stand in the way of a scrum team.  

If you are too deeply immersed in how to solve the problem or determining who should do the work, you risk alienating the development team. They don't know whether they are engaging you as a developer or whether you are their scrum master.  A senior developer within a development team would carry a great deal of authority and use that authority to determine how best to solve problems.  

A scrum master works from a perspective of influence rather than authority and as such, the lines can be blurred if you are both a senior developer as well as a Scrum master. It makes it incredibly difficult for the team to identify how they should engage with you.  

The plus side of being a developer is that you will immediately have your team's respect because you fully understand the challenges they face and how difficult the process of creating new products and services can be.

If you can maintain that level of empathy without stepping out of the role of a Scrum Master, it could be a great asset to your team. In my experience, that is often difficult to do and it's better that you aren't a member of the development team if you are going to lead effectively as a Scrum Master.  

If you are interested in becoming a Scrum Master, visit our Certified Scrum Master course page on https://www.agilecentre.com/courses/scrum-master/certified-scrummaster/ and visit our Advanced Certified Scrum Master course page on https://www.agilecentre.com/courses/scrum-master/advanced-certified-scrummaster/.  

If you'd like to get an idea of what being a Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master is all about visit https://www.agilecentre.com/courses/scrum-master/certified-scrum-professional-scrum-master/

If you like the idea of a mentored and coach-driven approach to your learning and skills development, visit our Agile Coach Academy on https://www.agilecentre.com/courses/agile-coach/agile-coach-academy/ 

We have also just launched an on-demand Introduction to Coaching course on https://agile-centre.thinkific.com/courses/introduction-to-coaching so be sure to check that out too.  

Visit https://www.agilecentre.com for more information on Agile Centre and visit https://www.johnmcfadyen.com for more information on John McFadyen.