Scrum Master vs Project Manager: Which Does Your Team Need?

A Scrum Master helps one team use Scrum well: coaching it to manage itself, protecting its events and removing blockers. A project manager plans and controls a project: scope, budget, schedule, staff and reporting. If your work is a product that keeps changing, a Scrum Master usually fits. If it is a fixed project with a set end date, a project manager does.

Many US small and medium businesses treat the two titles as the same job with different vocabulary. They are not, and hiring the wrong one tends to produce either a team that waits to be told what to do or a plan nobody follows. This guide sets out what each role is accountable for, where they overlap and how to decide.

What does a Scrum Master do?

The Scrum Master is defined in the Scrum Guide, the official definition of Scrum written by its creators, Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland (current version November 2020). The Guide says the Scrum Master is accountable for establishing Scrum as the Guide defines it and for the Scrum Team's effectiveness.

According to the Guide, the Scrum Master serves three groups:

• The team: coaching members in self-management and cross-functionality, helping them focus on high-value increments that meet the Definition of Done, causing the removal of impediments, and making sure Scrum events happen and stay within their timebox.
• The Product Owner: helping with techniques for defining the Product Goal and managing the Product Backlog, and facilitating stakeholder collaboration.
• The organization: leading, training and coaching it in Scrum adoption, and removing barriers between stakeholders and Scrum Teams.

Two things are missing from that list on purpose. The Scrum Master does not assign tasks; the Guide says Scrum Teams are self-managing and "internally decide who does what, when, and how." And the Scrum Master does not own the product priorities; that is the Product Owner's job.

What does a project manager do?

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics describes project management specialists as people who "coordinate the budget, schedule, and other details of a project." Its list of typical duties includes:

• Working with clients to set project requirements and objectives
• Building project plans covering objectives, funding, schedules and staff
• Selecting vendors or consultants
• Assigning duties to project staff
• Monitoring costs, milestones and deliverables
• Proposing and approving changes to the plan
• Producing and distributing project documents

In short, a project manager is accountable for delivering a defined result within agreed limits. They decide or negotiate who does what, track progress against a plan and report to the people paying for the work.

Scrum Master vs project manager: the key differences

• Accountable for: a Scrum Master answers for the team's effectiveness and its use of Scrum; a project manager answers for delivering the project on scope, time and budget.
• Who assigns work: in Scrum the team decides; on a traditional project the project manager assigns or coordinates it.
• Who sets priorities: the Product Owner in Scrum; the sponsor or client, through the plan, on a project.
• Planning style: Scrum works in sprints of one month or less and re-plans each sprint; a project plan is set up front and changed through change control.
• Time horizon: a Scrum Master role lasts as long as the product team exists; a project manager's role ends with the project.
• Main tools: Scrum events, the backlog and retrospectives, versus a schedule, budget, risk log and status reports.

The biggest difference is authority. A project manager directs the work. A Scrum Master serves the team so it can direct itself. A person who is good at one can struggle in the other if they bring the wrong habits: a project manager who starts assigning sprint tasks undermines self-management, and a Scrum Master who will not track budget leaves a fixed-price project exposed.

Where the roles overlap

Both roles remove blockers, run meetings well, keep stakeholders informed and care about delivery. Both need good facilitation and plain communication. That is why the titles get mixed up in job ads.

The work that a traditional project manager does is not lost in Scrum; it is split up. The Product Owner owns scope and order of work. The Developers plan and track their own sprint work. The Scrum Master looks after the process. Budget and contracts usually stay with someone outside the team.

When does a small business need a Scrum Master?

A Scrum Master makes sense when:

• You build or run a product that changes often, such as a software platform, an app or an internal tool.
• Requirements are unclear at the start and you learn by shipping.
• You already have, or want, a cross-functional team of roughly 10 or fewer people. The Scrum Guide says teams are "typically 10 or fewer people."
• The team keeps missing sprint goals, meetings run long, or the same problems come up in every retrospective.

For a small company, the Scrum Master does not have to be a full-time hire. Part-time or fractional support is common, especially once the team has the basics.

When does a small business need a project manager?

A project manager makes sense when:

• The work has a clear end: a website launch, a system migration, an office move, a vendor rollout.
• Scope, budget and deadline are fixed by a contract or a client.
• Several vendors or departments must be coordinated on one timeline.
• Someone needs to own reporting to a client, board or lender.

Can one person do both?

Sometimes, on a small team, one person covers both, and it can work for a while. The risk is the conflict built into the two roles: the project manager side wants to hit the plan, and the Scrum Master side wants the team to own its plan. If one person does both, be explicit about which hat they wear in each meeting, and keep the Product Owner as a separate person so priorities do not all sit with one role.

A common setup for growing companies is a project manager (or program manager) for budget, contracts and cross-team dates, working alongside Scrum Teams that each have a Scrum Master and Product Owner.

How to decide in five questions

1. Is the work a product that continues, or a project that ends?
2. Is scope fixed by a contract, or expected to change as you learn?
3. Do you want the team to decide how to do its work?
4. Who will own priorities: a Product Owner, or a sponsor through a plan?
5. Do you need formal budget and status reporting to someone outside the team?

Mostly "product, changing, yes, Product Owner, no" points to a Scrum Master. Mostly the opposite points to a project manager. A mix points to both, with clear lines between them.

How Loxvo can help

Loxvo offers remote Scrum Master consulting for teams that want day-to-day Scrum support without a full-time hire, and agile coaching and consulting when the question is how the whole company should work. Our people work remotely from around the world, so US businesses get experienced help at a fair price. Email hello@loxvo.com to talk it through.