[ghostinit]

This is the part that gets me. When it works, it's just someone doing basic execution. When it doesn't, you're paying $120k for someone to send calendar invites and forget retros.

That contrast you described, pharma-sales-rep energy vs the guy people yell at mid-meeting got me thinking about the actual ROI. I've been tracking salary data and trying to see if SM presence correlates with delivery metrics (deployment frequency, lead time, that kind of thing). Looked at around 40 teams. Couldn't find any meaningful difference.

Wrote up the whole thing here: https://agilelie.com/blog/scrum-master-salary-data-2026-wort...

Would love to know if I'm missing something in the analysis.

One thing I keep wondering: that good SM you had, would she have been just as effective as a tech lead who spends 10% of her time on facilitation? Or does the dedicated role actually matter when you find the right person?