Saturday 17 December 2016

The Journey from Scrum Master to Agile Coach (Temenos+Agility, HYD)



Yesterday, we had gathering by few agile Practitioners from Hyderabad. This meeting was hosted by Temenos+Agility represented by Sarthak Gupta and was facilitated by Arshiya Sultana. At the outset, I would like to thank Sarthak and Arshiya for making this happen.

The main topic of discussion was “The Journey from Scrum Master to Agile Coach”.

We dwelled on the path towards being an agile coach. One of the main questions, is being a Scrum Master a necessity to be an Agile Coach. Does it help and to what extent does it help? Of course we could not get a conclusive answer, which itself, is a testament to the passion in the diverse opinions on the topic. It was generally agreed that the agile system by itself does not prescribe a particular requirement other a good knowledge on the subject and implementation of the same.

Another important topic, was the market need of a scrum master and agile coach to have a technical background. All of us agreed, though the market demands it, but the role itself does not mandate it by any stretch. It is could be a budgetary issue that could be driving the need being expressed in this fashion. Also, it could be the issue of “other fringe benefits” to the company. It was suggested that we need to bring in the decision makers of companies into the agile group so that they have the exposure.

We had also discussed the factual loss of leverage / influence of a scrum master, which kind of makes then unable to influence decision making. It was generally agreed that market in India believes that the scrum master is go-between the scrum team and project manager. This factual loss of leverage diminishes the role of the scrum master. It reduces the positive impact they could bring on the scrum team. Also it diminishes the influence of the scrum master to lean on some critical scrum team members.

There was discussion on the need of certificates and of which that makes most sense. Arshiya advised that one should target a certification based on their dream companies. As an example, MS needs PMPs from PMI, CA uses SAFe and some others use DAD.

Sarthak, who flew from Bangalore, to organize this meet, spoke about Temenos+Agility and the upcoming “The Temenos Effect Gathering 2017” at Bangalore scheduled from 14th Jan 2017 to 17th Jan 2017. For more information on this gathering, please contact

Ms. Chaithra Rajanna SPC4, Agile Coach.
+91 9901015895





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