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Scrum Proponents Career Options

Introduction

There is a noticeable shift in how Scrum is perceived, and its integrity is constantly and increasingly being questioned.

Scrum is no longer the first or perhaps the only choice. More contenders nowadays position themselves as a better Agile product development method.

This brief review outlines what Scrum Practitioners and Scrum Experts will transition to if companies phase out Scrum.

 

Scrum Practitioners

Scrum will remain with many companies, and so will its roles.

Yet, we witness the ease of obtaining a Scrum course and certification status has devalued their worth.

Many practitioners lament that the career path and growth potential of Scrum Product Owners is unclear or a dead end.

There could be several emerging trends related to Scrum roles, particularly relative to the Product Owner role:

  • FEWER OPPORTUNITIES — A decline in Scrum Product Owner open positions.
  • ABANDONMENT — Scrum Product Owners will leave Scrum altogether and become software development project managers. This path may seem a natural transition for many.
  • ADJACENT METHODS — Scrum Product Owners will assume a product owner role that's part of another Agile method, e.g., SAFe, only to find that the Product Owner function in that other Agile method is now interpreted quite differently.
  • ADJACENT ROLES — Scrum Product Owners will assume a role-specific to another Agile method, e.g., a Release Train Engineer in SAFe.
  • PRODUCT MANAGEMENT — Scrum Product Owners will attempt to transition to Product Management. Many will succeed, but it will not be easy and demand a significant mindset change.
  • PROGRAM MANAGEMENT — It is unlikely that Scrum Product Owners will become Program Managers because the two roles are very different. Also, nothing in the product owner role prepares the individual for the broader scope of skills required of a Program Manager.

 

Scrum Experts

Scrum experts are more invested professionally, financially, and emotionally in Scrum than Scrum practitioners (Product Owners and Scrum Masters).

Scrum experts' careers and identity are linked to Scrum, so their reaction to a perceived or factual decline in Scrum's status will be markedly different than practitioners'.

There are several reactions by Scrum experts if Scrum goes down:

  • LOYALTY — There are Scrum experts who will commit to Scrum no matter what. They will dig in deeper when there is no way out, waiting for Scrum's resurgence.
  • ALTERNATIVES — Scrum is a software development method that belongs to the lightweight software development category (rebranded as Agile in 2001). This category contains Scrum variants and alternatives, which are an easy switch-over for the Scrum experts who can re-invent themselves as Kanban and XP experts, for example.
  • RENEGING — Some Scrum experts voice their concerns in articles and posts that Scrum is not working. Doubting Scrum and contemplating Scrum's problems is a safer approach than outright blaming Scrum. This justifies and paves the way for the Scrum experts to move to "something else".
  • CONFLATION — Through rhetoric and hashtags, Scrum experts will attempt to blur the difference between Scrum and established domains such as product management, project management, or product development. The hope is that this move will allow the Scrum experts to reclassify themselves as product management experts, for example.
  • LOFTY GOAL — Scrum is associated with the term Agile. One interpretation is that Agile is a movement/mindset/journey/culture/transformation thing. This overlap could allow Scrum experts to reframe their identity as Agile Experts and thus move away from Scrum.

 

Summary

The broader lesson of this analysis is that one needs to wisely manage their career and professional identity to avoid being narrowly type-casted.

Hitching one's career to a specific product or trend can be rewarding but equally risky.