The unexpected revival of the scrum master: agile Service Design for less waste and better Customer Experience

Scrum Masters were once the unsung heroes of Agile—removing blockers, coaching teams, and ensuring smooth collaboration. But somewhere along the way, they became glorified note-takers and process police. It’s time for a Scrum Master revival, one that redefines the role beyond just software development but encompasses design, business viability and, at the center, the customer.

The problem isn't clear: and that is the problem. Companies still organize around capabilities, not customer experiences. Engineering, marketing, design and operations each optimize their own swim lanes, but customers don’t experience a company in silos.

There is a dangerous, false sense of security among managers that manage their own swim lanes with confidence and focus — they risk cutting wires that supply other teams and customer experiences.

JourneyOps is about breaking these barriers—without adding new layers of bureaucracy. It’s Scrum done right: agile across teams, aligned with the full customer journey, and focused on real business impact.

Why it matters

Customers don’t care how efficiently teams sprint. They care about how the journey feels. Companies don't care about swimlanes either — they care about waste and double work.

Scrum Masters lost their way—now it's time to refocus

Scrum Masters were originally designed to be servant leaders—facilitators of smooth, cross-functional collaboration. But many have been reduced to backlog managers and process enforcers, operating within isolated Agile teams. The customer experience doesn’t care about your Agile board.

Meanwhile, organizations have grown increasingly siloed:

• Product teams launch features without validating dependencies.

• Marketing campaigns promise things that the product team isn’t aware of.

• Operations removes a step in the process, breaking the flow elsewhere.

This is where JourneyOps revives the Scrum Master role. Instead of just ensuring one team runs smoothly, they ensure the entire journey stays aligned—facilitating across teams, identifying dependencies, and making sure no part of the experience falls through the cracks.

JourneyOps: The Scrum Master 2.0 for customer experience

JourneyOps brings true cross-team agility by shifting Scrum Masters into a broader, customer-focused role. Instead of just running stand-ups and retros, they:

✅ Ensure teams work towards a seamless customer journey, not just isolated tasks

✅ Facilitate cross-team communication, reducing duplication and misalignment

✅ Identify dependencies before they become blockers

✅ Keep customer experience at the center of agile processes

Scrum Masters need to scale up—from helping one team sprint faster to ensuring multiple teams work in sync without extra bureaucracy. Less small meetings everywhere, more intentional forums that can update bigger teams all at once.

Key takeaways

• Scrum Masters need a revival. They’ve become process managers instead of true facilitators.

• JourneyOps is the fix. It turns Scrum Masters into cross-team orchestrators.

• Agility must be about experience, not just efficiency. Customers don’t care how well you run sprints if the journey is broken.

• No new hierarchy, just better collaboration. JourneyOps is about breaking silos without adding layers.

Further reading

• "Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time" – Jeff Sutherland

• "Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps" – Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim

• "The Lean Startup" – Eric Ries

• "Mapping Experiences" – Jim Kalbach

• "Team Topologies" – Matthew Skelton, Manuel Pais

SUMMARY PROTOCOL
TOPIC: Reviving Scrum Masters through JourneyOps
PROBLEM: Scrum Masters have become internal process managers instead of cross-team facilitators.
QUICK TAKEAWAY: The Scrum Master role needs to evolve into a JourneyOps function for true CX alignment.
CORE CONTENT: Teams still operate in silos, creating broken customer experiences despite Agile methodologies.
POLITICAL LANDSCAPE: Organizations resist adding new roles, making JourneyOps a servant-leader approach rather than a formal hierarchy.
QUICK ACTION: Empower Scrum Masters to focus on journey-wide facilitation, not just sprint mechanics.
RISK OF DOING NOTHING: Agile teams deliver features efficiently but create disjointed, frustrating customer experiences.
FUTURE PROTOCOL: Ensure Scrum Masters take on JourneyOps responsibilities—removing silos, aligning teams, and prioritizing end-to-end experiences.
🚀 Agent, the mission is clear: Don’t just optimize sprints. Optimize the journey.