After more than a decade now working with Scrum teams in companies from small startups to some of the larger corporations on the planet, I have found that there is one fundamental challenge to Scrum being successfully adopted/implemented, as well as having the truly transformative effects it is capable of for the organization as a whole. That fundamental challenge is fear of change and the fear of being wrong.

If there is one thing that is certain in my experience, Scrum will change your organization. It will change how the people within it view themselves and the work they do, not just how they go about doing it. In many companies I have worked with, there is very good reason to fear Scrum. The best reason is that if it is well executed/adopted, it is going to reveal your organizational problems very quickly and make them visible to everyone who is brave enough to look at them.

Being willing to admit that something is wrong and not working the way it should or could, even if you were the one behind that something, takes guts. 

The heart of Scrum is a change engine. The organizations who embrace this face the idea of continual self-examination and improvement at every level. Inevitably, challenges to changing the status quo, to facing bad decisions or policy or process come up when individuals and teams begin to make real progress. This means it takes real courage to look at what is really going on with you personally and the organization you are a part of. It takes even greater courage to attempt to change the challenging aspects you find without fearing for your reputation, your social standing or even your job security.

Those fears are not unwarranted. I have definitely felt the consequences of even gently, but directly, addressing challenges from workers, managers and executive leaders. Yet in my experience, this is the most necessary work for any Scrum Master to engage in, and by extension, the organization to which they belong thrives and flourishes to the extent Scrum Masters are supported in doing so.

Tobias Mayer recently put it well, “Historically, there has been no role in an organisation quite like this one. And this goes some way to explain why so few can enact the ScrumMaster role in this way. Those that do don't last long. But without those courageous few, brimming with faith for a more humane workplace nothing will ultimately change. And so the few keep trying, looking for cracks in the facade through which to enter, operating in stealth mode as necessary, creating change from the grass roots of an organisation, influencing through compassionate confrontation, leaving no stone unturned.”

Facing these fears whether as a Scrum Master myself, or when teaching new Scrum Masters that “A dead sheepdog is a useless sheepdog,” as Ken Schwaber himself put it, I have been “put down” in more ways than one in my career for speaking truth to power. I am careful to counsel new Scrum Masters that if they do their job to its fullest they will face the same dilemmas sooner or later. When they do, they will have to make their own choices about how to deal with the challenges the teams they love face. I can only encourage them to consider the consequences for themselves and for their organizations, for addressing or avoiding those challenges, those impediments to Scrum’s and more importantly the team’s success. In the end, I would simply say that I would rather be a sheepdog who takes on solving real problems for the team vs. one who stands by while they are ravaged by wolves, and I hope you are too.