2026-03-03
Do Scrum Masters Need Technical Skills?
Should a Scrum Master be technical? 🧐
Or is facilitation and conversational skills enough to bring value to a team as a Scrum Master?
I started as a Scrum Master years ago without technical skills... in a non-technical team. The content was up my alley and I was comfortable in the conversations they were having. Then, when I switched to a technical team... and I immediately got the feeling that my knowledge base was not enough. 😱
So I learnt. This debate of needing to be technical or not as a Scrum Master is still on, and a new player entered the game: Technical Scrum. They provide technical courses specifically to Scrum Masters to upskill them from a technical point of view (think Data, Devops, Cloud, AI...).
So, is it the right way to upskill as a Scrum Master? Or are we deriving from the role? 💡
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Nice one, Erik.
How I like to summarize when asked about this:
Tech knowledge is not mandatory to be a great SM, but it helps A LOT!
It's as if you speak their language. You know what they are talking about. They feel understood and it's easier to be accepted in the team.
Even better? When you can trigger discussion to use XP programming and DevOps tools/practices.
Artur
In my humble opinion, having no clue about what the team does and what they struggle with from day to day was and still is a dysfunction that never should have happened in the first place. What we now see in the market is a course correction and it's a good one. The same will happen with all the AI "Experts" that have never build a single thing with AI.
I'm glad that Dave Westgarth created these courses at Technical Scrum and I wish him a lot of success with it!
Marco