Scrum Team – Integrating Technical Line/Functional Manager

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We have recently had a new line manager start to manage our Scrum team. He is immensely experienced in our field but is relatively inexperienced at Agile/Scrum. He has extensive technical expertise in embedded software (the team's domain) that would go to waste if not utilised properly.

However, the team is wary of making a line manager part of the Scrum team. The general consensus is that the line manager should not be part of the Scrum team at all. There are a number of issues that may crop up, e.g. the team may start "reporting" to the manager (i.e. a daily status update!), the manager may start to micro-manage team members etc etc.

As it currently stands, he has already said that he feels like an outsider within the team. We really want to make use of his technical skills, we'd be foolish if we didn't because we are a relatively inexperienced and young team of twenty somethings.

What would be the best approach to integrate a senior "technical" line manager in a Scrum team and make him feel like he is part of the team?

Best Answer

In a lot of teams, including mine, the product owner is also a manager for some or all of the team members, so it's hardly uncharted territory. It does pose some difficulties, and for some teams is wholly unworkable, but this is what helped for us:

  • The manager and the scrum master must have an open relationship. It won't work if the scrum master is afraid to address issues with the manager.
  • The manager must have enough self awareness to realize when his actions are causing problems, and have enough self control to step back, at the very least when the scrum master brings it to his attention.
  • The team must be confident enough to stand up to the manager when it is in the best interest of the process.
  • The best thing may be for the manager to not always be there. When we noticed people doing the daily status update to the manager, he stopped coming to the scrums for a while. Some of our team members are still uncomfortable with increasing an estimate with him present, so he often steps out during more sensitive parts of our estimation meetings.
  • Some meetings are explicit scrum meetings, like your daily standup, iteration planning, and retrospective, but you generally also have design meetings and reviews that are part of making good software. The latter are a lot more important to have experienced technical guidance in than the former.
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