In our experience, a great ScrumMaster adds a ton of value for their team. It’s one of those roles where, when done well, everything else just works better. Unfortunately, that’s often intangible and hard to measure, and the ScrumMaster role is often one of the last to get budget and first to get cut.
So, when I talk about Scrum with Product Owners, I’m finding that POs are often on a team without a SM. In the real world, they’re having to do both roles.
But is that a good idea?
The Scrum literature, by and large, gives an emphatic “no.” Early Scrum books stressed the importance of a creative tension between the PO and SM that kept scope sustainable. The PO, in this narrative, always wants the team to do more and always wants to change scope, while the SM protects the team and keeps things focused.
While I’ve seen that dynamic, I think the structural tension between PO and SM is overblown. 99.9% of the POs I work with want their team to deliver high-quality product increments at a sustainable pace. They have no interest in burnout or churn.
A better way to answer the question is to revisit the Full STAK Product Ownership idea we shared a few weeks ago. POs need skills, time, authority, and knowledge to do the PO role well. When you add on SM responsibilities, you add, at minimum, a need for even more skills and time.
Something’s gotta give.
The result is usually a shorter, less strategic backlog and a SM role that looks like meeting facilitation and minimal impediment removal.
Which may be sufficient for some teams. The key, in my opinion, is being realistic about what’s possible and sustainable if you have to do both roles.
So, back to the original question… Can a Product Owner also be a ScrumMaster? Yes, if you’re ok giving up some long-term strategy in your backlog, if you’re ok with a less proactive ScrumMaster role, and if you have (or can develop) the skills to do both roles. It’s not ideal, but it’s doable.
A few tips to make it work:
- Use a model like our PO Board to avoid having to manage too much detail too early in the backlog
- Recenter your Scrum events on their purposes and prepare to facilitate towards those purposes so your meetings are efficient and effective
- Make persistent impediments visible to get leadership support for removing them
- Be ruthless about identifying and focusing on constraints instead of trying to give energy to everything
Finally, if you want some inspiration for thriving in a combined role, look into the Toyota product development system’s Chief Engineer role. It’s a little bit PO, a little bit SM, and a little bit tech lead. The good ones really are an inspiration. The case studies in The Toyota Way are a place to start.
Are you in this situation? What’s challenging about it for you? What have you tried, and how did it work? Tell us about it!
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