Working in the development industry and experiencing changes in the way of working first hand, led me to writing this article. Regardless of paradigms, the goal is to develop working solutions for internal/external customers in a timely cost efficient manner. This perspective is especially important for scrum masters to understand their role. 

In many teachings the focus of the role of a scrum master is primarily defined as guiding the team(s) through the rituals of the chosen framework in a rigid process focused manner. This narrow focus is more often than not becoming its own impediment.

Being adaptive and agile means being able to change decisions all through the pipeline by iterating back and forth between the people who have responsibility for delivery and those who are responsible for understanding the marketplace. If we want business agility we need innovations of every size to flow through the organisation’s delivery pipeline without being blocked by gates, bad interaction or poor project management techniques. The paradigms and frameworks are there to serve organisations achieving the mindset and having a blueprint to deliver value.

From this we can derive the real role of the scrum master. The scrum master is the facilitator, responsible for managing the flow. The scrum master should focus on culture and interaction as well as a few guidelines. The scrum master uses the framework and tools to power an intense level of social interaction and a decisions flow from good interaction at work. 

The scrum master is the flow master. The scrum master evaluates where he can be of service to make sure we have a predictable continuous flow in the delivery of working solutions. This adheres completely to the principles of original agile manifesto:

• Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools
• Working Software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer Collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to Change over following a plan

Organisations need to recognise this in order for any agile transformation to succeed.

If you would like to know more about flow or need help in exercises to improve flow, feel free to reach out.