Daniele Montecchi
In January 2023 Capital One, one of the big US banks, cut about 1,100 technology positions and eliminated an entire family of roles: the "agile" ones. Their responsibilities, as Banking Dive reported, moved to engineering managers and product managers.
It's an extreme case, but it raises a simple question: what does a Scrum Master do, exactly? Search for it and the most visible answers come from recruitment agencies and project management software vendors, and some of them describe a role the official source dropped back in 2020. I work as a Scrum Master as well as a developer, and that's exactly why this article starts from the official source and the data, not from opinions.
What a Scrum Master Does: Their Accountabilities According to the Scrum Guide
The reference definition is the Scrum Guide, written by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. The latest version dates from November 2020 and says two precise things.
First, the Scrum Master "is accountable for establishing Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide." Second, and more important, the Scrum Master "is accountable for the Scrum Team's effectiveness. They do this by enabling the Scrum Team to improve its practices, within the Scrum framework."
The key word is effectiveness: running meetings and supervising work don't appear in the definition. The Guide then splits the job into three directions.
| Serving | What they do, according to the 2020 Scrum Guide |
|---|---|
| Scrum Team | Coaching on self-management and cross-functionality, helping the team focus on high-value Increments, causing the removal of impediments, ensuring Scrum events take place and are positive, productive and kept within the timebox |
| Product Owner | Helping find techniques for defining the Product Goal and managing the Product Backlog, facilitating stakeholder collaboration as needed |
| Organization | Leading, training and coaching Scrum adoption, planning and advising Scrum implementations, removing barriers between stakeholders and Scrum Teams |
One detail that often gets lost: the Guide talks about "causing the removal" of impediments, not removing them personally. The Scrum Master's job is to make sure the team's problems get solved by whoever is able to solve them, even when that isn't the Scrum Master.
What Changed in 2020, and Why Many Articles Fell Behind
In the 2017 version the Scrum Master was "responsible for promoting and supporting Scrum" and was described as a "servant-leader." In 2020 both phrases disappeared: "promoting" became "establishing," and accountability for the team's effectiveness was added. "Servant-leader" was replaced by "true leaders who serve the Scrum Team and the larger organization."
Not everyone liked it. Mike Cohn, one of the best-known names in Agile, wondered in his take on the new version what in the world a "true leader" is. But the substance of the change is clear: the role shifted from promoting a method to answering for the team's effectiveness.
Plenty of well-ranked articles still describe the Scrum Master as a "servant leader," using a definition that is six years old.
What a Scrum Master Doesn't Do
Here the Scrum Guide is useful for what it leaves out, too. A few sentences take apart the most common misconceptions.
| Misconception | What the source says |
|---|---|
| They're the team's project manager | Scrum has no project manager. Scope, budget and deadlines aren't the Scrum Master's responsibility, as Scrum.org also points out |
| They're the team's boss | "Within a Scrum Team, there are no sub-teams or hierarchies" |
| They're the meeting secretary | The Daily Scrum is "a 15-minute event for the Developers of the Scrum Team," and the Scrum Master doesn't have to attend. Minutes, calendars and Jira admin aren't part of Scrum |
| They never touch technical work | If the Scrum Master works on Sprint Backlog items, "they participate as Developers." The role doesn't rule it out, it frames it |
| They're an agile coach | The agile coach doesn't exist in the Scrum Guide. Coaching the organization, though, has been part of the Scrum Master's job since 2020 |
A Scrum Master doesn't assign work, doesn't set priorities and doesn't supervise people. They answer for something harder to measure: how much the team manages to improve the way it works.
Scrum Master vs Product Owner vs Project Manager
These are the three roles people confuse most, and Google's search suggestions confirm it: "scrum master vs project manager" and "scrum master vs product owner" are among the most searched variations.
| Scrum Master | Product Owner | Project manager | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accountable for | The Scrum Team's effectiveness | Maximizing the value of the product | Delivering scope on time and on budget |
| Decides what gets done | No | Yes, by ordering the Product Backlog | Yes, by planning the activities |
| Decides how it gets done | No, the Developers do | No | Often yes |
| Part of Scrum | Yes | Yes | No |
The project manager isn't a "wrong" role: it belongs to a different way of working. The trouble starts when an organization calls a project manager a Scrum Master and expects them to do both jobs.
A Role Under Pressure: What the Data Says
Capital One isn't an isolated case. The State of Agile, Digital.ai's annual report released in October 2025, describes an Agile world in transition:
- only 13% say Agile is deeply embedded across their organization;
- 74% use hybrid or homegrown approaches rather than a "pure" framework;
- 76% feel more pressure to prove ROI;
- among people in Agile roles, 26% are doing less coaching than before, while 29% are moving toward strategy and business outcomes.
One limitation to keep in mind: there are 349 responses, mostly from coaches and consultants at large companies. It's a snapshot of the people who do this job, not a representative sample of teams.
Training data points the same way. Stefan Wolpers, a Scrum.org trainer, wrote that among his students, participants in entry-level Scrum Master classes fell from 49% in 2020 to under 5% in 2024 (Age of Product). He's clear that the sample isn't representative, but the trend matches.
Watch Out for Convenient Data
In June 2024 a study went viral claiming Agile projects have a 268% higher failure rate. Commissioned by Engprax, it was based on a survey of 600 engineers and promoted an alternative approach described in its author's book. The Register called it a "thinly veiled plug." The 268% figure isn't even explained in the text.
The most solid evidence on Scrum team effectiveness comes from academic research. Christiaan Verwijs and Daniel Russo published a theory of Scrum team effectiveness in ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, built on data from about 2,000 teams. Five factors matter: responsiveness to change, concern for stakeholders, continuous improvement, team autonomy and management support.
None of these is "running ceremonies well." They're exactly what the 2020 Scrum Guide asks the Scrum Master to work on.
Do You Really Need a Scrum Master?
The Scrum Guide doesn't say it has to be a full-time role, or that every team needs its own Scrum Master. It says someone has to answer for the team's effectiveness.
The data suggests a fairly clear reading. The role is under pressure where it has been treated as managing meetings and tools, because that work can be absorbed by other roles or automated. It holds up where it works on the factors research links to effectiveness: team autonomy, stakeholder relationships, continuous improvement, management support. That's the shift the Guide made in 2020, and many organizations haven't made it yet.
Scrum Master FAQ
What does Scrum Master mean?
It's one of the three accountabilities in Scrum, alongside the Product Owner and the Developers. According to the 2020 Scrum Guide, the Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum Team's effectiveness and for establishing Scrum in the organization.
What's the difference between a Scrum Master and a project manager?
A project manager answers for scope, time and budget and plans the activities. A Scrum Master decides neither what to do nor how to do it: they answer for the team's effectiveness. Scrum has no project manager.
What's the difference between a Scrum Master and a Product Owner?
The Product Owner decides what has the most value and orders the Product Backlog. The Scrum Master helps the team and the Product Owner work effectively, for example with techniques for defining goals and managing the backlog, but doesn't set priorities.
Are Scrum Masters and agile coaches the same thing?
No. The agile coach isn't a role in Scrum and usually works across several teams or the whole organization. Since 2020, though, the Scrum Guide has included coaching the organization in Scrum adoption among the Scrum Master's duties.
How much does a Scrum Master earn in Italy?
Public data is thin and self-reported. According to Paylab, 80% of Scrum Masters in Italy report gross pay between roughly €2,300 and €7,200 a month. There are fewer than twenty verified responses, though, and the range is so wide that it mostly tells you one thing: it depends heavily on experience, industry and company size.
How do you become a Scrum Master?
No specific degree is required, but the most common certifications are Scrum.org's Professional Scrum Master (PSM) and Scrum Alliance's Certified ScrumMaster (CSM). Many Scrum Masters come from development, testing or analysis, because knowing the team's work helps in spotting its impediments.
A Role to Measure on Effectiveness, Not Meetings
Put together, the source and the data describe a role that changed in its definition before it changed in practice. The 2020 Scrum Guide moved the Scrum Master from "promoting Scrum" to "answering for the team's effectiveness." And the data on Agile roles points the same way: what's shrinking is mostly framework coaching, while work tied to strategy and outcomes is growing.
For people who do this job, and for those who evaluate it, the useful question is less about how many ceremonies happened in a sprint and more about the team: whether, a few months in, it works better than before, and whether it can explain why.
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