Leadership Gap in Agile Teams: How Teams and Scrum Masters Mature

Simone V Spiegler,Stefan Wagner,Christoph Heinecke

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-19034-7_3

Simone V Spiegler, Stefan Wagner + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19034-7_3

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Abstract

AbstractMotivation: How immature teams can become agile is a question that puzzles practitioners and researchers alike. Scrum is one method that supports agile working. Empirical research on the Scrum Master role remains scarce and reveals contradicting results. While the Scrum Master role is often centred on one person in rather immature teams, the role is expected to be shared among multiple members in mature teams.Objective: Therefore, we aim to understand how the Scrum Master role changes while the team matures.Method: We applied Grounded Theory and conducted qualitative interviews with 53 practitioners of 29 software and non-software project teams from Robert Bosch GmbH.Results: We discovered that Scrum Masters initially play nine leadership roles: Method Champion, Disciplinizer on Equal Terms, Coach, Change Agent, Helicopter, Moderator, Networker, Knowledge Enabler and Protector. They transfer some of those roles to the team while it matures. The Scrum Master provides a leadership gap, which allows team members to take on a leadership role.Conclusion: The Scrum Master role changes while the team matures. Trust and freedom to take over a leadership role in teams are essential enablers. Our results support practitioners in implementing agile teams in established companies.

Highlights

More and more organisations implement agile teams
RQ1: Which roles does the Scrum Master play in an agile team? RQ2: In which way do team members take on the Scrum Master role over time? RQ3: How are roles transferred from the Scrum Master to the team members?
Our first two research questions aimed at understanding which roles the Scrum Master plays in an agile team (RQ1) and in which way team members take on the Scrum Master role over time (RQ2)

Summary

Objectives

We aim to understand how the Scrum Master role changes while the team matures. In a future research project, we aim to map research on maturity of agile teams [12] to the different Scrum Master roles we have identified to provide valuable insights on maturity and the changing Scrum Master role in each team development stage.

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Results

Conclusion