What roles do people take after scrum master/technical lead? [closed]

Question

What roles do people take after scrum master/technical lead?

EDIT: My current role is a mix of a technical lead and scrum master role, but that's how we do it in my company :) )

Answer 1

Technical evangelist? Scrum master is not technical role. Also Scrum master has no impact on architectural decissions => there is no point to promote you from non technical to technical role.

Scrum master is Scrum facilitator. He removes impediments from team and he ensures that Scrum is correctly followed. He does not lead the team and he does not define anything technical.

I always think about Product owner and Scrum master as roles replacing common project manager.

There are two explanations:

• You are not doing Scrum master at the moment. You are doing (technical) lead developer and so Technical evangelist is probably possible (but it is generally same as System architect, isn't it?). In such case you will leave Scrum as is and you will aim at architecture and technical area.
• You are Scrum master and company doesn't understand your role. The promotion for Scrum master is what @sjt suggested or you can be called Scrum Coach.

So the question is: Do you expect promotion to role related to Scrum or to role not related to Scrum?

Answer 2

What other roles do people take after scrum master?

Well, the answer is simple. Chief Scrum Master or Senior Scrum Master. That is if you still want to stick to owning the Scrum Framework, and all the scrum related stuff. Sounds like you will be given more responsibility with possibly of handling Scrum right from inception till the end for new projects, that's why I would suggest Chief Scrum Master. You may be involved in Team forming decisions, Virtual product forming discussions, maybe. Maybe even have Sub Scrum Masters working with you and you mentoring them. Irrespective of your promotion, if you have the expertise, there is no reason why you should not be involved in architectural discussions as an SM.

Bottom line to this is, don't worry about the role or title much. What matters more is the value you bring to the organization by making use of your expertise in the various fields you might have. Try to understand the essence of that and portray that in your daily duties and that would be your real role/title. Just my two cents. Congrats by the way!

Answer 3

I think you should stick with Technical Evangelist, that sounds pretty epic to me

Answer 4

A ScrumMaster is a pretty defined role. In terms of herding all the cats and moving into your next role, I would suggest two things:

1. You could be an Uber ScrumMaster, and yes, they do exist. Their job is to keep enterprise impediments from reaching the teams and working with the executives and ScrumMasters of the various teams to keep them running smoothly.

2. You could take on a more coaching role. Do less of the ScrumMastering, and more of the coaching: better practices, leading other ScrumMasters, teaching TDD, holding workshops.

+1 to Ladislav. SM is not a technocal role

Answer 5

The obvious choice would be to continue to expand your ScrumMaster certification.

The suggested path according to The Scrum Alliance is to become a Certified Scrum Professional (CSP) and eventually Certified Scrum Coach (CSC).

Answer 6

A "ScrumMaster of ScrumMasters" of course. You get to take care of the Scrum of Scrums :)

Answer 7

If you feel that you've truly mastered Scrum and would like to be able to do more in that area, you could either take up the CSP and CSC as Martin suggested, or simply train to become an Agile coach.

I'd also suggest having a look at Lean and Kanban. The principles are similar to those in Scrum and other Agile methodologies, with a slightly different focus and different tools and metrics.

Either set of skills can take you down the coaching route, eventually becoming an organisational change agent; or down the project and programme management route if you prefer that.