“The cost of being a bad Scrum Master is lower than the cost of being a bad engineer.”
I remember hearing this from a team member who was double dipping as the team’s Scrum Master.
And he was right. There wasn’t enough of him to go around, and the org didn’t have a dedicated team of Scrum Masters to support their dev teams. Also, I think it’s true that manager versus maker time mixes like oil and water.
That moment has always stuck with me because of:
- How common it is that teams must make such trade offs.
- His self-awareness to consciously prioritize his time and attention to being a good engineer even at the cost of being a bad Scrum Master.
- How well he communicated those priorities in certain and respectable terms.
Sometimes things just suck. Saying so isn’t a weakness but a reality. It takes wisdom to recognize what matters most, and more importantly, it takes courage to speak it aloud. Because without speaking it aloud, those who can make a change may never know there’s a change that needs to be made.
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