This short presentation compares the roles of Agile Lead/Scrum Master to the roles of Project Management.

1. Agile Lead, Scrum
Master vs Project
Management Roles
Presented by Jacqueline Sanders-Blackman
copyright 2021 @ techexpressoconsulting.com

2. 2
Project Manager and Scrum Master Compared
Project Manager Scrum Master
● Facilitate the HalfYear planning and
coordination
● Activity Planning, Sequencing,
Coordination across Stakeholders
● Team/Squad Planning
● Reconciling and Mitigating Product
Roadmaps
● Level of Effort
● Developing/Managing a Budget
● Documentation
● Creating Charts and Schedules
● Risk Analysis
● Managing Risks and Issues
● Monitoring and Reporting Progress
● Team Leadership Coordinator
● Facilitate Negotiation
● Stakeholder Management
● Agile Ambassador
● Acts as change agent
● Ensures productivity/velocity
● Manages Metrics/Predictability
● Enables collaboration with other
Teams
● Facilitates and Coaches Ceremony
Best Practices
● Addresses team issues
● Creates a safe working environment
● Watches work to:
● Minimize disruption
● Minimize WIP
● Update burndown
● Address blocks & dependencies
● Ensures process adherence

3. 3
● Project Management operates at the Program or Domain level to help coordination with strategic planning, management and
reconciliation across teams, dependencies and stakeholders. Project Manager may work with all of the squads within a
domain.
● Agile Lead/Scrum Master Will work with one or two squads maximum. Those teams may operate as Scrum or Kanban teams.
(Agile Leads should be versed in both).
○ The Agile Lead/Scrum Master does not have to “run” the ceremony, as squads mature the squad members will facilitate
the ceremonies (i.e. review/demo, retro, stand up , refinement and planning).
○ The Agile Lead/Scrum Master should empower others to fill in and therefore the Agile Lead/Scrum Master doesn’t have
to be present at every ceremony.
● Agile Lead and Project Managers should sync up to work on impediments, blockers and pain points. Those at the team level
will be owned by the Agile Lead. Those at the domain level or higher will be facilitated by Project Management.
● Project Management will aggregate data generated for each squad during and at the end of each Sprint. The information will
be used to help with forecasting, identifying trends and ongoing systemic issues/blockers.
● Project Management will use forecasting data to level set expected milestones for Initiatives and Epics.
● The Day to Day team dynamics, health of the team and work flow will be facilitated and shepherded by the Agile Lead/Scrum
Master.
● The Agile Lead/Scrum Masters will protect the team from outside infringement that will jeopardize safe and open squad
communications without outside judgement. Project Management and other stakeholders will not attend Squad meetings
unless invited.
● Project Management will facilitate most meetings that include 2 or more Squad Leads or Stakeholders. Facilitation includes
scheduling, facilitating the agenda, capturing decisions and action items, posting meeting follow up and updates.
● Project Management can recommend changes to the meeting and huddle cadence among stakeholders. Half Year and
Quarterly planning meetings should have a consistent cadence.
● Half Year and Quarterly Planning should be facilitated by project management including scheduling, having a clear timeboxed
agenda, recording of decisions, and post meeting follow ups and updates. The output from the Half Year and/or Quarterly
Update should be a Roadmap with feature level milestones and estimates that have been voted on by all squad members, risk
assessment, and capacity reconciliation.

4. 4
copyright 2021 @ techexpressoconsulting.com