Project Manager [PM] owns the goal of delivering a project. The team assists the PM in delivering the work products of the project. The PM is in charge of the project management processes right from planning to the execution stage. PM is the center of all the action and is a single point of contact for successful delivery of the project.

The project Managers have the “Project” Mindset. With this mindset, all the key decisions are taken by the PM. The mindset is all about how to deliver the project on time. The teams follows and executes them.

To successfully achieve the project goal, PM must be having project context and knowledge, delegate tasks, update plans, drive multiple status meetings, communicate with stakeholders and focus on process.

 

Unlike Project Manager, the Scrum Master[SM] is not accountable for delivery of the project. SM is grounded in servant leadership and facilitation, the SM roles do not map directly to any deliverables.

The SM owns the goal of making the team accountable for the project. The Team is at the center of all the action. Scrum master takes the back seat, guides the team by demonstrating the best practices of scrum ceremonies, mentors, grooms, coaches, and develops the team into self-organized, self-managed team. SM inculcates the agile mindset, scrum values, and promotes XP Practices into the team in a way that the team sustains delivering the customer value continuously with no compromise on quality.

Team follows “agile manifesto” values and does all the work done by the traditional project manager. Once the teams are fully coached and transformed into high performing self-organized teams, it’s like attaining Nirvana for the agile teams. The Scrum Master makes the team self-organized, shields the team from outside distractions and assists the team in unblocking any impediments, so that the team can achieve its desired goal.

Traditional project manager tries to control the project by allocating tasks to team member, scrum master creates an environment that allows team members to pick their tasks. Scrum master guides the team to their success and work as a servant leader.

Traditional PM is the person who lead the team to manage and execute the project while SM is a servent leader and works as a facilitator who helps team to achieving the goals by removing blockers and guide them in scrum values and principles

A scrum master is a coach and a facilitator while a traditional project manager is the one who manages a project in terms of scope, timelines, resources, budget and amount of work. A PM’s focus is on Project while a Scrum Master’s focus is on Team and Team members. A SM’s looks after the team dynamics and helps in making a team self organizing which can take its own decisions. He also teaches a team to treat every one equal. He also teaches people to live by scrum values of Trust, Respect, Courage, Commitment and Openness. He should be a humble and have empathy. None of these attributes are must required in a PM and PM looks after the team and project. He has to get the work done and may take my way r the highway approach.

Traditional project manager act on command and control scrum master act on influence and mentoring. Scrum master will inject one team nature in individuals that foster the respect, courage within scrum teams.

While Traditional Project Manager mostly take the role of a care taker of a project to ensure the timelines, Scrum Master teaches and coaches the team to be resourceful and help in their journey towards self-organisation. Scrum Master’s usually influence without authority and hence the team grows organically.

Scrum Master is referred as a facilitator, who manages the teams that are implementing the Agile methodology. Scrum framework is the best framework for smaller teams of developers, who can break their work into a Sprint in order to get your project done at the end of every sprint. The Project Manager has to report to the client and the stakeholders, whereas the Scrum Master has to report to the Product Owner alongside the stakeholders and clients. You will find out that the Project Manager plays the leadership role by leading a planning for the execution of the project. Scrum Master plays a support role for the team members, by working closely with the team and assuring that they are following Agile principles properly.

In simple words, Scrum Master empowers the team to take up responsibilities and individually commit themselves as a team and for the team, whereas, a traditional PM only focuses on completion of an assigned task.

Scrum Master’s priority is the TEAM, but a traditional PM’s priority, most of the time is assigned work. A good Scrum Master believes that, “A great team always delivers”.

Firstly, there is no role as such ” Project Manager” in Scrum. In general Project manager’s role is to manage the projects and ensure that the project meets the requirements.

Scrum Master is referred as a facilitator, who manages the teams that are implementing the Agile methodology. Scrum team decides on work items and break their work into a Sprint in order to get your project done at the end of every sprint.

Scrum master is people servant who facilitates delivery practices by using scrum guidelines. Process and tools to be used are decided on the flay based on the nature of work initially. And ceremonies like retrospective, early feedback demos, stand ups are used to make teams self governing and happily accountable.

Scrum Master is a servant leader who helps running scrum across one or multiple scrum teams, surfacing and resolving impediments through moderation. Also although the SM is not responsible for task allocation or backlog creation, he/she ensures the team stands true to the goal, is scrum oriented and in turn self-organized.

The PM on the other hand is responsible for planning, task delegation, impediment resolution, conflict resolution, risk managemnet, reporting, Sprint/ Product Backlogs etc. He/She is primarily the task master for the team and responsible to meet the deliveriries at the end of each iteration, release or Sprint.