It’s the story of a rock band. A duo. A real rock duo. They didn’t play Woodstock, they weren’t roadies for Mötorhead, but one of them was a pilot during the Vietnam War. In the 90s when people think rock is dead, he launches “Scrum”, their band. It takes time to break through. In the very early 2000s during an underground music festival, a broader movement of which they’re part takes shape. It’s a springboard for them. The mid-2000s see the big bands become real dinosaurs. Like punk in the 70s, like Grunge in the 90s, they are the spearhead of the rupture in the mid-2000s. From underground they become the headliners.

It must go to their heads, certainly intoxicating. This band is 10, 15 years old and it finally reaches its peak. The next ten years will be their golden years. In 2006, at Google, Ken (Sutherland) runs through his scales with the impudence of a young Elvis¹:

Every team has its scrummaster, also known as the pain in the ass or the troublemaker. This person's role is to make sure you don't compromise quality. They don't have authority, but if we've decided that what we've built in the period must have a certain level of quality to be reviewed, their job is to make sure that quality level is there. And if the quality level isn't right, they can prevent you from reviewing it, and tell the *product owner*: "sorry we're not meeting the expected conditions. We need more time, so let's take that time". This person is probably the least loved person, because they stand at the crossroads between product management who believe we can do as much as we want and our willingness to put ourselves at risk by not respecting quality to satisfy that belief. -- Ken Schwaber 2006

It rocks, it’s disruptive. This magical role – and very difficult to play (remember you’re the “asshole”, an even more direct translation of “the prick”²) – is one of its pillars. The smooth flow and balance between product desire and its creation are ensured by its neutrality: they don’t have authority. It’s a rupture with the old dinosaurs. And above all it works. But it’s difficult to play.

The 2010s therefore start well for our duo Sutherland/Schwaber. But others rush into the breach opened by this movement. There are always shady producers who take advantage of movements, manufacture fake bands and release records by relying on gimmicks (they mime, but they don’t really play, like guitar heroes on game consoles).

Guitar Hero? Air Guitar?³

"People copy the most visible, obvious, and frequently least important practices" – Three Myths of Management, Pfeffer & Sutton.

And often they scoop up the commercial rewards. They’ll be quickly forgotten, they’ll bring nothing to music, but for a time they’ll take the cash. They make sure to reassure parents, rock becomes acceptable.

For the duo it’s the beginning of the end, they see the fruits of success go into other hands and unfortunately forget their music for the lure of profit. It’s the beginning of excessive merchandising: certifications. Form begins to take precedence over substance. Like many rock bands, to try to regain their shine from the 2000s, they start to parody themselves and no longer reinvent themselves.

And then comes 2020 which sounds the death knell for the duo. Like unfortunately many bands, the lure of profit seems to have become more important than their music. They’re ready to sacrifice anything to have success again, to be in the spotlight. Even if it means releasing a final album that will shame the entire discography. Releasing a syrupy hit that will disappoint the original fans, prove right the bands that stayed underground and will never be mainstream (XP for example).

This is what the duo finally decides to do: play the ephemeral and what pleases the public, but which has no substance. In 2020 the scrummaster, the prick became “the person responsible for team effectiveness”. In one sentence Scrum became as obsolete as the methods it had itself made obsolete.

In fifteen years we went from: you’re responsible for nothing, but you ensure –even if it means being hated by everyone– proper respect for quality (which we will have decided together) and the framework – to – figure it out yourself, you’re responsible, you’re the boss (that’s what buyers want to hear).

It’s the end of a good band, Scrum, it made us vibrate. Always difficult to play, many broke their teeth on it, many plagiarized it without understanding the meaning. The first albums will remain in all good music libraries, the last ones will be melted down in municipal dumps with old smartphones.

On the scrummaster

Being a scrummaster is about maintaining a balance. A balance between product desire, and the capacities and willingness of those who make it, the product. To be heard, or respected (even if you’re called “the prick”), you must be neutral: neither on the product side, nor on the side of the team that builds. Only one way to be neutral: to be responsible for nothing except the framework.

In the framework there’s this somewhat strange thing, this character: the team that builds. The scrummaster must manage, if it doesn’t already exist, to make this character exist. And it’s not just an assembly of individualities, it’s a real team. You know Tuckman’s stages: we create the team (forming), it searches for itself by rubbing up against each other (storming), it finds its bearings (norming), and – at times and cyclically – it’s very high-performing (performing).

Being neutral doesn’t mean not being confrontational. On the contrary, you’ll be the one who will know how to guide many teams through these stages with a complex mixture that combines protection (the “psychological safety” within a team and its ecosystem) and highlighting their team deficiencies (not individual ones). The one who will know how to show them reality while protecting them. Without being too violent (a fever heals, too much fever kills).

It’s by using this hot/cold that the scrummaster helps the team move from forming to storming to norming, that helps to birth this character that is the team. The scrummaster is a subtle alloy of submission and rebellion to the system. Impossible to use this hot/cold if you’re not neutral, if the intention is elsewhere. Impossible to be neutral, to work this balance, this tension, if you’re responsible for anything.

For a more concrete overview of the scrummaster role: agile survival guide

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