Why Scrum Masters Are Getting Fired

Another large company in my circle just fired a bunch of scrum masters and agile coaches.

That has been coming for almost a year with very strong signals, but now, that this happened, it came down as a “big surprise”.

This had nothing to do with the financial picture of the enterprise. (That was pure a managerial decision, weighted, strategic, and all that.)

So if you think your company is doing all right, and because of that you will be safe – you can be mistaken.

Most of the fired folks are skillful people, loving what they do and trying to get better at it. Others have given up over time but not because they wanted to.

In my analysis, there has been a very painful vicious cycle in motion (and I know it from other similar cases, so it is a generalization):

• the existing org design was made in a way that it limited the scope of influence of these people — what Org Topologies calls a narrow scope of skills mandate

• so the only thing they were mandated to do is making local improvements (eg at team level)

• but exactly because of that, they could not show real benefit over time or gain trust based on value delivered

• organizational performance improvements stagnated

• and because of the lack of trust and acceptance as significant party, these coaches could not influence the org design and get a broader mandate

Can you see how this reinforcing loop is making things only worse over time? Imagine it running for like 2 or 5 years.

My personal take from this: never allow yourself staying in a place where you are not allowed to show your true potential and make real impact.

Your relevance as valuable workforce is in your hands. And only in yours. No HR partner will save you when you have not been allowed to perform and just decided to hang in the comfortable limbo for years. The same pattern applies to developers — when AI replaces the task and your mandate is narrow, you are exposed.

Get yourself going! (Or you will be gone.) The path forward is multi-learning — broadening beyond a single craft so you have something to offer when the current task no longer needs a human.

(Sorry for this harsh truth. And all the best to the people who find themselves in a similar situation. There are companies that need your expertise and would be happy having you in.)