The role of Scrum Master is specific to Scrum. Since Scrum has become the most widely known of the agile approaches, the term Scrum Master has become a common term for the person who is acting as process guardian and facilitator for agile teams.
Question: How do you feel about the BA being the daily Scrum Master?
It depends on the business analyst. If that person has excellent facilitation skills, and a passion for helping the team establish and stick to their chosen processes, then I think that business analyst could be very successful as Scrum Master. If however, that person’s real passion is helping to define the scope of the project, develop a clear description of the problem to be solved, and establish a clear set of solutions, that person should not attempt to also fill the role of Scrum Master. Instead, if they have the appropriate decision making authority they should be the Product Owner. If they do not have the decision making authority, they should be a member of the team focused on the key aspects of problem definition and solution development.
Question: How does the PM role change in agile vs. waterfall?
Sure, I made a little bit of a leap in putting this question in this post, but it felt like a good fit. Depending on which agile approach your team follows, you may not find a role called specifically “project manager” but the project management responsibilities do not go away. I’ll describe what happens in Scrum, again because it is the most common process adopted. The team takes on several project management responsibilities as they as a group decide who is doing what when and keep each other up to date on status.
The role of Scrum Master assumes the responsibility for removing barriers for the team, and acting as process guardian, doing whatever they need to do to help the team be as effective as possible. In effect, the Scrum Master is really a project manager acting as a servant leader.
