YDS: How Many Scrum Teams Can a Scrum Master Serve?

Today's question is about all about the Scrum Master and how many teams they can serve at one time. Ryan and Todd discuss their experience working with many teams and provide some guidance on how to know when a Scrum Master could be taking on too much responsibility.

How many teams do you serve? Let us know in the comments!

This is one of those Scrum Master interview questions about the Scrum Events that can throw you off. Do you understand the tradeoffs of working with multiple teams? These Scrum Master day in the life questions can be tricky. The backlog refinement meeting is important. Perhaps some Scrum Master training could help? Want to learn more about Scrum?

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[janicecruz]

I have 5! This includes an offshore team. We started as one team but as we scaled, we divided into two teams, then added an offshore, then divided a team into two, then added another team of 1. This video is incredibly helpful in me understanding what is happening to quality. My favorite quote "Our job is not to be more busy, our job is to help our teams be more effective."

[Michael-wtvl]

Would you please considering doing an episode explaining the difference between 'Project Mindset' & 'Product Mindset'? I've read and thought about this topic myself, however, I would really appreciate your perspective. Love Love Love the series!

[ManifestationsX]

Love this series! 9 Daily Scrums would blow my mind!

[keshavmathur]

For me, the answer to this question should always be 1. Even if a team is super mature and doesn’t need lot of Scrum Master time, there is always lots to do for a Scrum Master to serve the organization. So for a Scrum Master, its about shifting focus as and when required. Would you agree Todd and Ryan?

[vkxcqsn]

I was in an organization that had a senior manager be the PO for 7 different teams in addition to the other 2-3 jobs he already had. He just kept being assigned more and more jobs to do. I think he needed to clone himself multiple times and collect 9-10 paychecks. It was something definitely noticed by by the lower levels of leadership.

[jodiekane]

I've had 3 and all had some offshore team members so we had a small window of team time. I ended up moving all the offshore team members to 1 team. That helped somewhat.
Basically, i can be a rockin SM for 1 team, a good SM for 2 teams but past that it is a steep decline.

[TheSebabaez]

Oh this video comes in so clutch at a time when I was just asked to help get the ball rolling in a third scrum team

[Anujful]

Great inputs there. It’s hard being a consultant ScrumMaster, I was given 3 teams and I couldn’t say no. I tried to manage but I wasn’t doing a good job. But...
Question: what are the tools of a ScrumMaster? Depending on the situation, what tools should a ScrumMaster use?

[justechos]

Love this series. Can you talk on story point estimation and how it works. Well done guys

[goblufeverwe]

So good and thanks for putting this together. Leadership and I will be having a chat soon :)

[rmarkend]

Generally speaking - there is value in starting with one team - helping it get to Done Increments (which is very hard btw) and inspect/adapt from there :). I usually only start with one team.

[sheetalprathap]

I'm currently handling 3 Scrum teams and to add to it, all of my Scrum teams are distributed across IST and CST timezones. At 1 point in time, I was also handling 4 Scrum teams. I'm unable to get into details of each team and the deliverables.

[futuresavers]

I needed this video haha been wanting to get an answer. If you guys can do 5, then I can do 4, Todd doing 9 haha. That's some crazy stuffs

[Lightforlife]

What the PO should do if they are more experienced in Agile than the SM on the team?

[kaueferraz]

Similar question: How many Scrum Teams can a Product Owner serve?
We are trying to figure how it works to have one product owner for several teams (that work on the same project), but we are still in the process.

[joea]

I am currently the SM of two teams, the most I have done is three. I think 2-3 is manageable. I have a question:
How do you handle a scrum team that is working on different products, domain knowledge is locked up in individuals? They are much more of a collection of individuals than a team. This is an organizational wide issue.

[soniyakapoor]

Just stumbled upon this and its Bang on, I have the same problem, I just started as a Scrum Master no prior experience, I am given 6 different Projects each having 3 to 4 different products and have also been asked to handle the QA team of approx 30 ppl and the QA team is not responding much as we all are working from home :( ... and above and all I am getting not much help been a newcomer.. can you help me ??

[b.a]

So you guys talk about Flow and ended up serving 5+ teams 😂😂?