When Scrum Masters Aren’t Allowed to Change Anything

[#1]

If the only power a Scrum Master has is ceremonies + reporting, expect ceremonies + reporting. And a ton of resentment.

That’s how you end up with your Scrum Master policing Jira fields.

Not removing impediments. Not changing anything. Just… auditing.

I saw a rant from an engineer who’s on their “n-th” Scrum Master.

The pattern was painfully familiar:
Great at pointing out “numbers not matching”
Bad at fixing the actual system
Retros turn into therapy
Nothing gets actioned
Nobody pushes back on nonsense (including the team’s nonsense)

And most of the time, it’s not even the Scrum Master’s fault.

This role only works when the Scrum Master is allowed to actually change things.
Not just host meetings and report numbers.

A good Scrum Master is not a meeting host. They are an impediment remover.

Meaning they should be doing things like:

Turning “retro complaints” into owned actions with dates, and following up next sprint.

Cut the status theater. Default to async updates. Use meetings for decisions and unblocking.

When random work gets injected mid-sprint, force the tradeoff. “What’s getting dropped?” is the question that saves teams.

Use metrics to spot bottlenecks, not to shame people. If cycle time is bad, cool. Now go fix what’s causing it.

If your Scrum Master cannot do those things, your org has neutered the role.

And then everyone argues about Scrum forever, because that’s easier than changing incentives.

Let’s not do another year of Agile Theater.

[Artem Taranenko]

IMO this is a multi-factor problem.

Sometimes it’s a skills issue. Certification isn't a testament of competence. We treat it as such, but that's a perception rather than reality. Knowing the framework is half the battle, diagnosing why the system isn’t working and knowing how to change it is the real job. Many Scrum Masters can describe what’s broken but lack the ability to fix it. It's worth noting that process analysis and design is its own discipline!

Other times it has nothing to do with Agile and everything to do with org culture. Resistance to change kills impact. “We’ve always done it this way” isn’t overcome by better ceremonies or cleaner Jira boards. It’s solved with change management, clear to-be states, stakeholder buy-in, and sustained reinforcement. That stuff isn't meaningfully covered in most Scrum Master or other Agile training.

When Scrum Masters lack authority, sponsorship, or change skills, the role is reduced to ceremonies, reporting, and compliance. Not because they want to police Jira, but because that's what they can and know how to do.

One-dimensional Scrum Masters don’t scale in today’s environment(I'd say that's becoming true for any role now). Those who create real impact usually bring broader delivery, engineering, or transformation experience, and the confidence to challenge incentives, not just facilitate meetings.

That’s Scrum Masters. To be fair, change resistance often comes from developers who want to write code, but disengage from the process and change on the operations side.