"Scrum Master is just a role. It's possible to be both a Scrum Master and developer at the same time."
At some point I'll need to write a post on why I disagree with this quote from no one and everyone. But for now, I'll settle to tell you about my transition from Developer to Scrum Master.
I started out as a traditional "waterfall" developer for a large corporation. One of my earliest memories as a new developer is of a conversation I had with my first manager wherein I asked him what I was supposed to be doing between releases. His response was puzzling to me. He tried to explain that with the way our release cycle went, we as developers would have "ups and downs" as we waited for the new requirements document to be released*. I left the conversation more confused than I was before. Was it okay that I had nothing to do for two to three weeks? What was happening with the project during that time? Surely there was something I could be doing to help prepare for the next release?
Not long after that conversation took place, my manager approached the team about "agile" and purchased a book for us to read in our spare time. It turned out this was a great idea because while we were waiting around in our cubicles for the next set of requirements, we were all studying Agile, slowly learning that maybe there was a better way to get work done.
In the meantime, I found that my favorite parts of my job were when I was directly interacting with other people. Time spent in my cube left me feeling alone and uninspired. So I began to greatly look forward to those meetings my teammates dreaded vehemently.
I wish I could say that our team eventually experienced a collective epiphany and that we immediately switched to Scrum. Unfortunately, I left that job before agile had the chance to sink in.
It was a few years later and with another employer that I finally tried "agile". We were experimenting with a bastardized version of Scrum including me, another developer and our manager. Our manager was wearing three hats: manager (of course), Scrum Master and Product Owner. Our Daily Scrums were status meetings, our Sprint Reviews were just demos and our Sprint Retrospectives were non-existent. But the one positive thing I can say about this time in my career is that my interest was officially piqued.
Later I helped participate in interviews and we brought on a third developer to work with our team which increased our Development Team size and we began to actually experiment with working together to get work accomplished.
Meanwhile, across campus in another area of IT, there was a more robust and experienced team trying out Scrum and finding success. They were being coached by their Scrum Master, Millie.
My "team" staggered onward and seemed to be enjoying the experiment. As we learned more, we tried new things and eventually there was direction given from our upper-level management for our entire department to fully pursue "agile". We began to receive small bits of coaching from Millie, and I became even more intrigued.
During this transition time, teams were formed out of the few dozen staff in IT working as individuals. Some of those staff members immediately took other jobs. I, however, was excited by the change. We started using Jira to track our sprints and began attempting to work with client representatives as a precursor to proper Product Ownership.
Over the next few years, our organization slowly started to change and I found myself usually on board with all things agile. Occasionally, I rebelled against constructs I found to be personally unnecessary like keeping project timelines. We continued to struggle as an organization (and still do) because we organize our work by projects which almost always confuses our attempts at successfully running Scrum teams.
I began to slowly pull back from development as I recognized the need for a broader perspective of my team. Members came and went, but I always found myself drawn to teaching and mentoring my team members. I did this starting from a technical perspective considering that I'd been promoted to a senior developer. But then I found myself hanging back a little on the development tasks and I spent more time coaching the team on things like the purpose of the Daily Scrum and working with our Product Owners to better understand what the development team needed from them.
I also began to work more closely with Millie and even met to specifically talk about my career in a mentor/mentee capacity. We discussed my potential as a Scrum Master and how I might be able to influence change in the organization if I were able to put down my development responsibilities.
I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shoutout to the Superwoman Summit in this next part of my story. At this point in my career I was a wife, mother and experienced developer and I was questioning the personal fulfillment I was getting from my work. I needed to feel like the time I was spending away from my child was really worth it. After attending the first Summit in 2017, I made a decision to take a risk and began keeping my eyes peeled for any opportunity to begin to move away from the technical space where I worked. Eventually it happened, and about 8 months later I took a position as a "Project Management Specialist" with a focus on Agile coaching and Scrum Mastering.
Props to you if you've made it this far in the story of my journey! To wrap up, I'm now PSM I and PSM II certified and I'm working on building a network of Scrum Masters to rely on from coast to coast. I work closely with Millie now on a daily basis and we are teamed up with one other coach to work together on the agile transformation at our organization. I am the most fulfilled I've ever been as a professional.
I'll save my personal views and epiphanies on Agile and Scrum for another post. If you have any questions about my journey, please leave a comment.
* My manager accompanied this explanation with the wavy hand gesture like you do when your hand is hanging out the window of a car.
