Mike Lyons argues Scrum Masters need to stop hiding their impact. While project managers brag about financial gains and performance wins, Scrum Masters stay silent, making them vulnerable in layoffs. He says it's time to quantify and share what you've actually delivered: faster releases, happier customers, cost cuts.
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I'm finding myself a little frustrated at the industry and sort of how we're treating the role of Scrum Master. Here's what I mean. You may have seen that there's been a number of layoffs in Agile coaches, but also Scrum Masters. And then there's all these sort of pundits and arguments on, well, you just need to prove your value or show your worth. And that's true. I do think it's true that everybody in the organization should be providing value. But let me ask you this. Do you ever meet a project manager who is unafraid to say how much money they saved the company or how much money their project brought in for a company? The sort of, hey, I'm on this $100 million multi-year program and we delivered it and it introduced a, you know, 10% growth in revenue. And I did that. Project managers saying, "I did that." It's not uncommon at all. I see it a lot. You know what I don't see? I don't see Scrum Masters doing that. I think maybe we should. Agile coaches, Scrum Masters, why shouldn't we say, "Hey, I've been on this multi-year product, and over the years we've released 10 new features that improved customer satisfaction by 15%, reduced cost to the organization." We just need to start talking that way, and I wonder if it's because of our approach as servant leaders. This idea that, well, servant leaders would never talk about the work they did, it's all about what the team did. Yes, I know it's all about what the team did, and Scrum Masters, you're on the team, so take credit for your work. It's perfectly reasonable to take credit for the value you bring to the organization, to speak about it, to post about it on social media, to tell your boss about it. So don't be afraid to take credit for the good work that you're doing. Thank you.