--- title: "Scrum Master" url: "https://www.5whys.com/topics/scrum-master.md" canonical: "https://www.5whys.com/topics/scrum-master" updated: "2026-10-27" tags: [] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "What a Scrum Master is and is not, why the role can rotate in the team, and where Scrum misses the maturity stages of a software team." usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # Scrum Master [Topic](https://www.5whys.com/#topics-h) Scrum defines the Scrum Master role, but it says little about leading a team that is stuck in survival mode or one that is ready to organize itself. These articles question what a Scrum Master should be, compare Scrum with XP and Kanban, and answer practical questions from Scrum teams. 1. [Scrum Master 2.0: A Scrum Master is Not](https://www.5whys.com/articles/scrum-master-20-a-scrum-master-is-not.html) July 22, 2014 Why a Scrum Master should not be a fixed team leader, tech lead or coach, but a role rotated weekly among team members so nobody becomes a bottleneck. 2. [The 3 maturity stages of a software team and how scrum fails to identify them](https://www.5whys.com/articles/the-3-maturity-stages-of-a-software-team-and-how-scrum-fails.html) May 17, 2010 The chaotic, mid-life and mature stages of a software team, the leadership each one needs, from dictator to coach, and why Scrum Masters miss them. 3. [Why XP’s influence is more effective than Scrum](https://www.5whys.com/articles/why-xps-influence-is-more-effective-than-scrum.html) December 10, 2009 Why XP practices like TDD, pair programming and continuous integration change team behavior better than Scrum alone, seen through six forces of influence. 4. [Scrum vs. Kanban attitudes](https://www.5whys.com/articles/scrum-vs-kanban-attitudes.html) June 13, 2010 A link to a post on how Kanban and Scrum differ in attitude and in how they provoke change, with a note that combining the two can work well. 5. [What to do if some people in the team just don't want to take a task?](https://www.5whys.com/articles/what-to-do-if-some-people-in-the-team-just-dont-want-to-take.html) June 6, 2011 How a Scrum team leader should respond when team members won't pick tasks in sprint planning, with different tactics for each team maturity stage. 6. [Daily Standup Meetings - Introduction and 5 useful tips](https://www.5whys.com/articles/daily-standup-meetings-introduction-and-5-useful-tips.html) September 6, 2009 How to run a daily standup meeting with the three questions, why each question matters, and five hard-learned tips for keeping it under 15 minutes. 7. [Video: How to manage a person who is always late to a standup meeting](https://www.5whys.com/articles/video-how-to-manage-a-person-who-is-always-late-to-a-standup.html) July 30, 2011 A YouTube video answering how to handle a team member who is always late to the daily standup, with a different approach for each team maturity stage. Other topics: [Survival Mode](https://www.5whys.com/topics/survival-mode), [Learning Mode](https://www.5whys.com/topics/learning-mode), [Team Leader Manifesto](https://www.5whys.com/topics/team-leader-manifesto) · [All articles](https://www.5whys.com/articles) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/