Current conception of the Scrum Master role

The agile approach to software development is currently very popular. The most widely used agile framework is Scrum. The Scrum Master role is responsible for implementing Scrum in an organization. However, agile frameworks like Scrum were designed for smaller projects. Due to its usefulness, the agile approach started to make its way into the field of large projects and scaled agile frameworks started to emerge. There are a limited number of publications dealing with the role of the Scrum Master or scaled agile frameworks. Moreover, incorrect implementation of a framework in an organization has been identified as one of the major problems in establishing scaled agile frameworks. Thus, this paper aims to define the concept of the Scrum Master role in scaled agile frameworks and map its evolution from its inception to the present. Literature research combined with analysis and synthesis is used to achieve this goal. A systematic mapping study is used to map the current state of knowledge about the role of the Scrum Master in the context of scaled agile frameworks. The original role of the Scrum Master has evolved from a managerial role to the role of a facilitator over the years since its inception. Scaled agile frameworks usually introduce other individual or team roles in addition to the Scrum Master role to fulfil its responsibilities. This way, the responsibilities of the Scrum Master role are fulfilled at different levels of the organization. This paper provides an up-to-date view of the role of the Scrum Master in the context of the original Scrum framework as well as its adaptation within popular scaled agile frameworks. This way the paper helps with an understanding of the origins and significance of the Scrum Master role and provides an overview of proposed ways of establishing it in an organization.