This hybrid role isn't easy, but it can be rewarding. And, as teams understand and embrace Scrum principles, the project management overhead can be minimal.
Conclusion
Perhaps it will become more popular to value project management tasks for their ability to enable the team to be more productive. Management and project management roles should result in increased output, or they aren't being done right. But, it's still possible to have a successful Scrum adoption experience by leveraging the experience to key technical contributors who also understand Scrum.
It's risky to mix ScrumMaster and people manager roles, but some teams have had success with this. [4] Successful agile adoption requires a mix of technical and project management change, so having a good technical person who embraces agile values and enjoys the project management aspects of the role can be a big win.
References
- Weinberg, G. M. (1985). The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully. New York, N.Y., Dorset House Pub.
- Weinberg, G. M. (1986). Becoming a Technical Leader. New York, NY, Dorset House.
- Tabaka, J. (2006). Collaboration Explained: Facilitation Skills for Software Project Leaders. Upper Saddle River, NJ, Addison-Wesley.
- Berczuk, S. and Y. Lv (2010). “We're All in This Together.” IEEE Software, IEEE. 27: 15-18.
About the author
Steve Berczuk is an engineer and ScrumMaster at Humedica where he's helping to build next-generation SaaS-based clinical informatics applications. The author of Software Configuration Management Patterns: Effective Teamwork, Practical Integration, he is a recognized expert in software configuration management and agile software development. Steve is passionate about helping teams work effectively to produce quality software. He has an M.S. in operations research from Stanford University and an S.B. in Electrical Engineering from MIT, and is a certified, practicing ScrumMaster. Contact Steve at steve@berczuk.com or visit berczuk.com and follow his blog at blog.berczuk.com.
