Who needs scrum masters?
Serious question
Software development teams don't need scrum masters. Let that sink in. Scrum mastering a small group of developers and a product owner to become self-managing is a job that should take less than 3 months, preferably 6-8 weeks
The SM's real job is organisational transformation, not team hand-holding. As a SM I'd hope to have a team self-managing in a matter of weeks, maybe 2-3 months, then moving to a new team and staying light-touch connected with the previous team/s. But this team focus is just for the early days, first year maybe? Following (and overlapping) that I'd be working with executive management to consider restructure/re-architecture of the whole system to better reduce waste, increase autonomy (and thus engagement) and support the new (Agile) way of working.
Software development teams don't need scrum masters. Some, actually probably many, need technical coaching but that is a different job. A good SM should be able to identify that need very early on and take steps to engage a coach/teacher to help the developers improve.
Rather, it is organisations who need scrum masters. It is management who need scrum masters. It is HR who need scrum masters, it is BODs who need scrum masters. Positional Power needs scrum masters because without them there is no one courageous enough to speak up, to speak truth. The scrum master is a court jester, a Jiminy Cricket, and a prophet. Again, the SM's real job is organisational transformation, not team hand-holding. Few people understand that. Even fewer implement it.
I fear how people will apply this who have just skimmed or not really understood the intent. Scrum masters and agile coaches are losing their jobs over the past year in droves (and still are) - will this lead to more?
Moving on, I'm wondering how do we emerge from the fire that is scorching all "Agile" some in part due to many broken "Agile" and "value' promised not delivering predominantly where scaling Agile without doing as you mentioned in your article to restructure? To be fair in some cases we had built the internal capability enough that it was time to move on.
So many are hurting from implementation by the "unknowing". Heck I was unknowing until I saw teams hurt by agile implementations and learning how to do better.
I am curious do we already possess the collective intelligence to heal this profession and address above and how to move forward?
I second the court jester. A jester is neither a joker, nor a fool, some can be very mean - you'd better listen to this one.