What You Need to Know Before You Decide to Be Both a Scrum Master and a Developer

Photo by Jo Szczepanska on Unsplash

If you’ve been working in the IT sector for these past few years, the terms Agile must be familiar to you. We are living in an era of constant changes and the demand to be able to adapt to those changes is getting more intense. That’s why the Agile Manifesto was born. One key framework derived from the Agile Manifesto is Scrum.

Scrum is an agile project management framework that helps teams structure and manage their work through a set of values, principles, and practices — Atlassian (2022)

The Scrum framework is fairly simple being made up of a Scrum Team consisting of a Product Owner, a Scrum Master and Developers, each of which have specific accountabilities.

Ideally, the positions of Scrum Master and Developer should be held by separate people. However, the world we live in is far from ideal. I’ve experienced this firsthand when working on the project of building a web app for my company’s internal documentation system. The situation then pushed me to wear two hats, as Scrum Master and Developer.

Background

The project I’m working on is a internal documentation site where the main feature me and my team have to develop are:

• Application Programming Interface (API) Catalogue
• Data Dictionary & System Design Document Catalogue
• User Authentication & Authorization system

My team was consisting of 3 people. The task might sound like not much, but the scope was pretty massive. Me and my team have to work on the gathering User Requirement, UI Design, Database Design, System Architecture, Testing, Deployment, and on top of that coding and implement the whole thing while writing our thesis.

With the responsibilities as team leader, I took charge and embark on 5-months journey of being Scrum Master and Developer.

The Process

Image from Wikipedia

There are some key benefits of being a scrum master while also being a developer which includes:

1. Having a deeper understanding of the product. You will understand the challenges of building the product and make sure the features being developed are sensible to be accomplished by the developer teams.
2. Being able to peer-to-peer coaching and mentorship with other Developers. Most developers are introverts and close off by nature. This might pose some challenges when trying to connect with them. By joining the development process, you can have more common points to talk about and connect with one another.
3. Having more influence on the team’s processes and practices. Since you follow the development every day as a developer, you can influence how things are conducted and developed.

However, I won’t deny that there are challenges too when you are wearing two hats at the same time:

1. Balancing time and focus between building the product and serving the team. As a Scrum Master and Developer, you had to juggle many tasks. This required a lot of time and mental energy, and it was important for the author to find ways to balance their responsibilities and prioritize their tasks.
2. Potential conflict of interest. There may be times when you are tempted to sacrifice the end goal for the sake of finishing the development. For example, you may be tempted to cut corners or skip certain steps in the Scrum process to meet a tight deadline. It’s important to resist this temptation and stay focused on the project goal.
3. The difference in the skill sets needed. You will need to master and excel in your hard-skill (coding, design) and soft-skill (negotiations, delegations, leadership, communication). This can be challenging, but it’s important to develop these skills through practice and seeking feedback.

Tips

So with the experience I’ve gained in these projects, I want to share a few tips that might you who find themselves wearing these two hats:

1. Prioritize & delegate. I recommend using the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize tasks and delegate responsibilities. You want to focus on tasks that are both urgent and important and delegate tasks that are urgent but not important to other team members.
2. You need to have the courage to take decisions that are necessary for the project goal. For me, I’ve experienced these points when I need to get my team to complete one more sprint although our timeline is already past the timeline since the product is missing one key feature. Be transparent and told why this was necessary. This kind of communication will help you get through to other people and make them want to join in for the cause.
3. Find time to seek feedback from your teams and mentors. Make yourself open to critics and feedback so you can lead your team better. Sprint Retrospective is a good opportunity to gather feedback and make improvements for the next sprint.

Conclusion

Wearing two hats as a scrum master and the developer is hard, but it isn’t impossible. In fact, I found myself to be a better developer after going through these experiences. So, don’t be afraid of the challenges. Be bold and keep learning.