The Hidden Cost of Removing Scrum Masters from High-Performing Teams | Pascal Papathemelis

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches

Episode: The Hidden Cost of Removing Scrum Masters from High-Performing Teams | Pascal Papathemelis
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Pascal Papathemelis
Release Date: July 8, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte welcomes Pascal Papathemelis to discuss a critical yet often overlooked issue in Agile teams: the repercussions of removing Scrum Masters from high-performing teams. Through Pascal's firsthand experiences, listeners gain deep insights into the indispensable role of Scrum Masters and the unintended consequences of sidelining them.

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Guest Background and Inspiration

Pascal Papathemelis begins by sharing the sources of his inspiration and professional growth as a Scrum Master. Contrary to what one might expect, Pascal attributes much of his development not to a single influential book but to active community engagement and networking.

"Most inspiration I've got from something that is not a book, but more like from networking in the community and getting the discussions and attending different events in Finland from the Agile Finland Association."
[01:37]

Pascal highlights the value of practical, real-world interactions over solitary study, emphasizing the importance of community in shaping effective Agile practices.

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Valuable Community Engagements

Delving deeper into his community involvement, Pascal recounts his participation in Agile Finland's coaching circles and Agile Coach Camp events. These gatherings provided him with a platform to exchange experiences, collaborate on Agile strategies, and immerse himself in intensive learning environments.

"The first two events were really a wow feeling... So many new thoughts... my brain was steaming."
[04:25]

These interactions not only broadened his knowledge but also reinforced the significance of collaborative learning and adaptability in Agile methodologies.

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The Core Issue: Removing Scrum Masters

Transitioning to the main topic, Pascal shares his observations from two organizations where the removal of Scrum Masters led to significant team degradation. Initially, these teams exhibited high levels of collaboration and self-organization, with Scrum Masters seemingly finding little to do.

"It was clearly that they were having time of not contributing to creating value because they were not needed by the team."
[08:47]

Management interpreted the apparent idleness of Scrum Masters as a sign that their roles were redundant, leading to their removal and reassignment to other tasks.

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Impact on High-Performing Teams

The immediate aftermath of removing Scrum Masters was palpable. Teams that once thrived began to struggle with maintaining their cohesion and efficiency. The absence of Scrum Masters meant that essential tasks—such as facilitating stakeholder reviews, managing impediments, and conducting Scrum rituals—fell into disarray.

"The whole team kind of started to fall apart in the sense that there was not the same kind of good collaboration inside the team."
[14:55]

Moreover, the shift led to increased turnover, as team members found the environment less supportive and more fragmented without the guidance of a dedicated Scrum Master.

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Key Lessons Learned

From these experiences, Pascal distills several important lessons:

1. Value Over Agility:

   "Agility per se is not the main purpose, but the purpose should be creating value for what we do as a team, for the end customer."
   [12:21]

   The focus should always be on delivering value, with Agile practices serving as the means to that end.

2. Flexibility in Roles: Scrum Masters should be adaptable, assisting not just within their immediate boundaries but also supporting roles like Product Owners to enhance overall team performance.

3. Continuous Support: Even in highly mature teams, the presence of a Scrum Master is crucial for maintaining processes, facilitating communication, and addressing unforeseen challenges.

4. Management Awareness: Management must recognize the multifaceted role of Scrum Masters and understand that their value extends beyond visible tasks. Micromanagement or misinterpretation of their role can undermine team dynamics.

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Organizational Implications

Pascal underscores that the downfall experienced by the teams was not just due to the absence of Scrum Masters but also a lack of alignment and communication between Scrum Masters and management. This disconnect led to misguided decisions that ultimately harmed the team's structure and morale.

"Probably there the management had misunderstood the effort to build a team and not being aware of what are really going on."
[16:08]

He emphasizes the necessity for organizations to maintain clear communication channels and to appreciate the strategic role Scrum Masters play in fostering team synergy and effectiveness.

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Conclusion and Takeaways

The episode concludes with a reflection on the indispensable role of Scrum Masters in nurturing high-performing teams. Removing Scrum Masters, especially in otherwise mature and effective teams, can lead to unintended negative consequences, including reduced collaboration, increased turnover, and diminished team morale.

Key Takeaways:

• Scrum Masters are Vital: Their role extends beyond facilitating Scrum ceremonies; they are integral to maintaining team health and efficiency.
• Value-Driven Agility: Agile practices should always aim to maximize value creation for customers.
• Organizational Alignment: Management must fully understand and support the role of Scrum Masters to prevent missteps that can destabilize teams.
• Community and Continuous Learning: Engaging with the Agile community is crucial for ongoing professional growth and staying abreast of best practices.

Pascal's storytelling serves as a powerful reminder of the nuanced and critical role Scrum Masters play within Agile frameworks, advocating for their continued presence and support in organizations striving for excellence.

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About the Host

Vasco Duarte is a seasoned Agile Coach, Certified Scrum Master, and Certified Product Owner. Through the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, he connects listeners with Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches worldwide, offering actionable advice, tips, and inspiring conversations to help professionals enhance their Agile practices.

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For more insights and to join a community of Agile practitioners, visit scrummastertoolbox.org/membership.

Transcript

[Vasko]

Hey there, Agile adventurer, just a quick question. What if for the price of a fancy coffee or half a pizza, you could unlock over 700 hours of the best Agile content on the planet? That's audio, video, E courses, books, presentations, all that you can think of. But you can also join live calls with world class practitioners and hang out in a flame war free and AI slop clean slack with the sharpest minds in the game. Oh, and yes, you get direct access to me, Vasko, your Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. No, this is not a drill. It's this Scrum Master Toolbox membership and it's your unfair advantage in the Agile world. So if you want to know more, go check out scrummastertoolbox.org membership, that's scrummastertoolbox.org Membership. And check out all the goodies we have for you. Do it now. But if you're not doing it now, let's listen to the podcast.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

Hello everybody, welcome to one more Tuesday Team Tuesday this week with Pascal Papatemilis. Hey Pascal, welcome back.

[Pascal]

Hello.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

So on Tuesdays we talk about teams of course, as we usually do. But before we go into that, Pascal, share with us, what was the book that most inspired you in your career as a Scrum Master?

[Pascal]

When you sent this question to me, I've been thinking like, is there any book that has inspired me mostly, but I'm not sure if there is any single book. I think most inspiration I've got from something that is not a book, but more like from networking in the community and getting the discussions and attending different events in Finland from the Agile Finland Association. I think there is where I've got most inspiration and knowledge. I've been looking into books, but perhaps I'm not a very good book reader. I tend to read more and then I tend to take some notes and perhaps draw something on a paper to conceptualize what I read. But personally I would say networking with people, working and sparring with my colleagues. Yeah, that's where I received most of the inspiration for my professional development.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

So when you think about community events, participating in this kind of events, what have been the type of events that have been the most rewarding, the most inspiring for you? Pascal?

[Pascal]

So when I started in Agile Finland, was it like early 2010? Was it 12 or something? I don't remember exactly. I was joining those agile coaching circles in Helsinki, which is an event that takes place once a month and the topics are related to agile and to coaching in general. And different people were sharing their own experience on the certain topic and it was done in a mostly practical way with group work and discussion, etc. And then at one point I was quite thrilled because I found that this is a good source of new knowledge. And then one day there was an old organizer that said, well that's enough, I'm stepping down now as an organizer. So then I ended up myself being an organizer and I was running them for, was it about eight years together with some other people. In the beginning it was quite hard because my experience was not that big. Now I think I can fill up a year with my own stories and experience and share my knowledge. Yeah, but, but all those coaching circles have been very good. Then I've been attending different Agile conferences as a speaker, as an attendee. But then something perhaps I would like to point out that has been more Where I got the biggest wow feeling was an Agile Coach camp event which is a weekend retreat, over 48 hours, starts on Friday afternoon and goes up to Sunday afternoon. And it's an open space so people bring their topics and the agenda is formed by the participants, for the participants together collaboratively. It has been quite intense. So the first two events were for me really a war feeling and where like I had so many new ideas and thoughts that I would say in the evening I could not sleep because my brain was working and processing all the new information and I was, I would say like instead of sleeping my brain was. Steam was coming out of my head. So many, many new, new thoughts and yeah, so I would really recommend everybody to join an event like this if you have not done because you get a very close connection to those events with other people. It's a very good networking and it's quite intense. It depends on you, how much you invest and how concentrated you are and how much you collaborate with other people. So if you are a type of person who might not want this much, then you can be a bit more relaxed and sit behind and. Yeah, absolutely. Topics can be whatever people come, if they come, the people who are there in the session are the right people. And if you don't like a session there is the law of two feet. So you can walk to the next room and.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Pascal]

Finland we have good team working things like with sauna in the evening and good, you know, even the fun part does not come too short.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

Absolutely. And definitely find an Agile coaching camp near you and try it out as Pascal just suggested. But Pascal, of course we also talk about teams here on TeamTuesday and we want you to tell us the story of the team Tell us a little bit about the context and then walk us through those small little behaviors or attitudes that over time grew and became a problem for the team.

[Pascal]

Pattern I've seen a few times, at least in two organizations I worked with in the past has been like a team that works fine, but slowly does degrade the purpose. So there were a few teams I was when I joined an organization and when I went there was it about 2012, 2011. They were very good in doing Scrum, very good in self organizing the teams. And I was thinking like, wow, that's like a very high level of collaboration, etc. And then I could see though that because the team was so much mature and able to deal with things, there were not so many impediments and the Scrum Master was kind of running and supporting the team. But in quite clearly periods of time, the Scrum Master was kind of not having anything to do. Perhaps what could be a thing where the Scrum Master could like think can support the team in some other way and be useful and not just hang around which was visible and well, it was not, did not stay unnoticed on my side. I think it's also management who might also walk around in the corridors and see in the team rooms also realized that. So then suddenly happened the change of the total opposite that the management decided, oh, we don't need Scrum Masters anymore. So they changed.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

Do you have an insight as to how that idea came about? Was it because the Scrum Masters were visibly not doing anything? Was that like what triggered that kind of reflection or was it something else?

[Pascal]

I don't know. That's like my own hypothesis because it did not stay unnoticed to me that, you know, as grandmasters were perhaps like spending time on reading books that can also be useful, but perhaps, you know, having the body language that was there. If they are like also sitting next to the door like they're the first person you see if you walk by not really having anything useful to do. I mean you should not always. I don't say that people need to look busy, but it was clearly that they were having time of not contributing to creating value because they were not needed by the team. So yeah, that was my observation. And then a few months later I realized that the management decided that yeah, we do now a small change and. And I took from that department all the Scrum Masters away and assigned them to new tasks. So some had to become testers in different other organizations or do other things. I did not follow up exactly on what was their new assignment. But then clearly I could also sense that the team started to struggle because somebody had to take part of some of the activities. The Scrum Masters were very good in, taken care of and all that.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

Can you give an example of that?

[Pascal]

Administrative thinks of inviting the stakeholders to the review, checking with the stakeholders. I mean that should be a task that nowadays is more on the product owner based on the latest Scrum guide. But at that time the perception was that the Scrum Master is facilitating also the reviews and taking care of certain perhaps impediment, handling and following up on that and participating in the Scrum of Scrums that time that organization had. So then the team needed to decide and different teams took different roles. They might have taken circulating role of the Scrum Master so that every sprint a different person would be a Scrum Master or different other solutions they had there. But still I could see that in those cases the team and the person who took the role of the Scrum Master could not fully focus on what he was doing beforehand because he might have not been that good in being a Scrum Master and he had to learn new skills and also that he needed to spend time on taking care of other things, communicating to outside and organizing the different events.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

When you look at this story, what are the key lessons for you from that observation and looking at what was happening in that organization?

[Pascal]

I think one lesson would be that agility per se is not the main purpose, but the purpose should be creating value for what we do as a team, for the end customer. And if a Scrum Master can also support on that, don't be focused onto your own boundaries. Now I'm a Scrum Master and I will not do anything else. So I think then the Scrum Master could have perhaps done more to help the product owner. Where I think in that organization the product owner could have used more help on from from the Scrum Master. And also Scrum Master could have perhaps been more involved in also some of the development tasks being like a part time developer. Or at least instead of taking away all the Scrum Masters, the thing could have been done. But having a Scrum Master for two teams, which we see nowadays in more organizations being the case in the second organization, when I saw the same thing, perhaps it was done in again more radical way by the management which was not that successful because there was a team that was built and I was thinking, wow, this team has so much knowledge and so much potential. But then when the Scrum Master was taken away from the team, then the whole team kind of started to fall apart in the sense that there was not the same kind of. Now what would be the right word? The kind of good collaboration inside the team and the spirit that Scrum has to provide it into the team. So in that case it was so that because the organization tried to build up that team for almost two years and recruit very capable developers that were very good into their own field and more like top notch people. But then those people pretty soon, like after the Scrum Master was put out, then the whole team kind of people started leaving the organization again. So all the investment that was invested in finding the right people and setting up the team and having a good Scrum Master and all the developers at the end was not very sustainable in the sense after doing the change as.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

People from this story. There's one thing that is clear for me is that the setting up of the team, like you discussed on the Monday episode, is very important. But also that making sure that the team has the things that they need, whether it is relationship wise or tools wise or management support wise, whatever that is, making sure that the team has all they need to perform is a very important responsibility. But it's not the responsibility that comes up in a task list or in jira. Right? Like making sure the right stakeholders are involved or informed. That's not a task in jira. But somebody needs to be thinking about this on a regular basis, at least every sprint, if not even daily in some cases. And I think that we lack somehow the language to make that work visible. That's my assumption. How do you see it, Pascal?

[Pascal]

Yeah, I think in that particular case, perhaps the management tried to be more micromanaging. The team might have received that impression. So it was an external factor you ask for internal factor. But that was in consequence of the Scrum Master showing like, hey, I have now more time and I can do, you know, educate myself on other things. So in that last situation I mentioned, it was that after year only two people were left from the eight that were in the team. So yeah, I think probably there the management had misunderstood the effort to build a team has not seen not being aware of what are really. What is really going on. Yeah, that might have been something that there was no connection between the Scrum Master and the management. So. Well, you know, we did not have the stakeholders really involved. Might be a learning afterwards hypothesis. I don't know, cannot verify anymore.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

I think that the role of the Scrum Master or the team facilitator is something we could discuss for a long time. Unfortunately, the Time is up for today's episode, but maybe it comes up in an episode later this week. Pascal, thank you very much for sharing those stories.

[Pascal]

Yeah, thank you. Hopefully it was useful for the audience.

[Vasko]

All right, I hope you liked this episode, but before you hit next episode, here's the deal. This podcast is powered by people like you. The members who wanted more than just inspiration. They wanted real tools and real connections. Connection to people who are practicing Agile. Every day we're talking access to over 700 hours of agile gold, CTO level strategy talks, summit keynotes, live workshops, E courses, Deep Dive interviews, books, and if you're into no Estimates, we got the pioneers of no estimates in those Deep Dive interviews as well. Agile Business Intelligence, creating product visions, coaching your product owner courses, you name it. You'll get invites to monthly live Q&As with agile pioneers and practitioners, plus a private Slack community which is free of all of that AI slop you see everywhere. And of course, without the flame wars. It's a community of practitioners that want to learn and thrive together. It's the best place to connect with community and learn together. So if this podcast has helped you before, imagine what you will get from this podcast membership. So head on over to scrummastertoolbox.org membership and join the community that's shaping the future of Agile. We have so much for you, so check out all the [e-mail] membership because listening is great, it's important. But doing it together, that's next level. I'll see you in the community Slack we really hope you liked our show.

[Pascal Papatemilis]

And if you did, why not rate.

[Vasko]

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[Pascal Papatemilis]

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