Three engineers were shipping. Then management hired a Scrum Master

[ghostinit]

Early 2023s, small fintech startup. Deadline: 4 months to launch. Engineering team was literally 3 people. Me as architect, plus two devs. We had our shit together. Architecture designed, infrastructure running in the cloud, backend skeleton ready.

Devs were building features. We were on track. Then month 2 hit and management started hiring. A bunch of managers showed up. Then they brought in a Scrum Master. First week this guy wants to implement full Agile ceremonies.

Daily standups, sprint planning, retrospectives, backlog refinement. The whole package. His reasoning: "You need process to scale." We had 8 weeks left.

We weren't trying to scale. We were trying to finish. I've seen this same pattern play out multiple times now. Small team shipping. Management gets uncomfortable with lack of visibility, they hire process people. Process people need to justify their existence, ceremonies get implemented and everything slows down.

The thing that kills me is the timing. We were working. Why fix what isn't broken when you're 8 weeks from deadline? I'm genuinely curious, why can't management just leave working teams alone? Is it actual concern about sustainability or is it just discomfort with not having control mechanisms in place?

What's your experience with this?

[adamzwasserman]

I can't help you now, but for next time:

Preventive measure: get Scrum Master certified yourself. The training can even be fun with a good instructor.

Then when professional managers come sniffing around muttering about Scrum, you say: "I am a certified Scrum Master. Our process is already 100% Scrum.

[ghostinit]

Interesting strategy. I've thought about getting certified just to have the credibility. The irony would be certified Scrum Master saying "we don't need full ceremony right now" harder to dismiss as "doesn't understand Agile."

Smart defensive move.

[PaulHoule]

Isn't the scrum master supposed to be a rotating role from somebody on the team?

[ghostinit]

Yeah in theory. Scrum Guide says it can be anyone, but when you hire a dedicated full-time Scrum Master... they need to justify existing.

That's when it stops being team member helping out and becomes process person from outside.