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Card 6 of 15 The Scrum Team ●●○ Working knowledge

The Scrum Master is accountable, not administrative

The Scrum Master is a true leader who serves the Scrum Team and the wider organisation, and is accountable for the Scrum Team's effectiveness. The 2020 Guide calls the three an *accountability* rather than a *role*, and dropped the earlier "servant-leader" phrasing for this one.

Why it is like this

Making them accountable for effectiveness rather than for process compliance is what stops the job becoming a meeting scheduler. They are measured on whether the team gets better, not on whether the board is tidy.

Not to be confused with

A project manager, a team lead, a secretary, or a person who runs the events. They cause the removal of impediments and coach self-management, which includes the team learning to run its own events.

In practice

If the Scrum Master is on holiday and the Daily Scrum does not happen, the team was not self-managing and the Scrum Master was not doing the job.

Source: The Scrum Guide, November 2020 (Schwaber & Sutherland) — Scrum Master. Read on .

The Scrum Guide is published by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland under CC BY-SA 4.0. These cards are independent commentary written in our own words, not a derivative of the Guide's text. ytyk.org is not affiliated with, endorsed by or licensed by Scrum.org, Scrum Alliance or the Guide's authors.

Predict Check yourself

A manager asks the Scrum Master for a report on each developer's velocity. What does the Guide give the Scrum Master to work with here?

  1. Accountability for the team's effectiveness and for helping the organisation understand Scrum — individual velocity is not a Scrum measure at all.
  2. A duty to report, since the Scrum Master serves the organisation.
  3. Nothing — the request falls outside Scrum and the Scrum Master has no standing.
  4. A duty to collect it but not to attribute it to named people.
Show the answer

Accountability for the team's effectiveness and for helping the organisation understand Scrum — individual velocity is not a Scrum measure at all.

Velocity appears nowhere in the Guide, let alone per person. Helping the organisation understand why that request is the wrong question is squarely the Scrum Master's job.