One of the fault lines in modern Agile development remains the purpose and application of process. For me the fundamental conflict between a developer and a “scrummaster” is to do with what the main purpose of that role is. Scrummasters often profess a servant manager role for themselves while actually enacting a traditional master hierarchical function.

The following is the acid test for me. The servant manager is one who takes the work I am doing and expresses it in a form that allows people outside the team to understand what I am doing, the progress I have made on it and make predictions about when my work will be complete.

The traditional manager instead tries to control my work so that it fits neatly into the reporting tools that they want to use. They don’t hesitate to interfere, manipulate and control to make their life easier with their own superiors.

Calling yourself a servant manager but then telling people how to structure their work is paying lipservice to a popular slogan while continuing a strand of managerial behaviour that has been proven to fail for decades.