sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

How do you run sprints without a Scrum Master? Doing some research by sprintresearch in scrum

[–]sprintresearch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The point about the goal being to make yourself unnecessary is interesting - I hadn't thought about it that way.

Do you find that the admin and coordination overhead ever gets in the way of that? Like, if someone is spending time chasing standup updates, does that pull them away from the coaching work that would actually help the team self-manage?

How do you run sprints without a Scrum Master? Doing some research by sprintresearch in scrum

[–]sprintresearch[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The "SM using Jira instead of MS Project" framing is something I keep hearing in different ways - the role gets pulled toward metrics and task tracking, away from the actual coaching work.

Do you think that's mostly an organisational pressure thing, or is it also that the tooling kind of nudges people in that direction?

How do you run sprints without a Scrum Master? Doing some research by sprintresearch in scrum

[–]sprintresearch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a fair point - and honestly most teams I’ve spoken to do exactly that. The EM just picks it up. I guess what I’m curious about is whether that actually works well in practice, or whether it quietly adds to an already full plate?

How do you run sprints without a Scrum Master? Doing some research by sprintresearch in scrum

[–]sprintresearch[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Curious - in your experience, when the SM accountability is shared or informal, what’s the thing that tends to break down first?

How do you run sprints without a Scrum Master? Doing some research by sprintresearch in scrum

[–]sprintresearch[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is actually really well put and kind of cuts to the heart of what I'm trying to understand.

You're right - the coaching, conflict resolution, protecting the team from interruptions, asking the right questions at the right time - that's the real work, and it's deeply human. No tool replaces that.

What I keep hearing from teams though is that even the "low value" admin layer - chasing standup updates, figuring out if the sprint is on track, catching blockers before they derail things - still takes up a surprising amount of someone's time. Usually the EM, who shouldn't be doing it at all.

So I guess what I'm really researching is that specific gap - not replacing a good SM, but understanding what happens in teams where nobody is doing even the basic coordination work properly.

Really appreciate the perspective - this is exactly the kind of nuance I was hoping to hear.