It was Sprint Planning, and the Scrum Master was unexpectedly pulled into a leadership workshop. The team carried on without her. They reviewed the Product Backlog, clarified the top stories with their Product Owner, and aligned on a clear Sprint Goal. When she returned later that day, the plan was already in place; thoughtful, realistic, and wholly owned by the team.
To some leaders, it looked like proof that the Scrum Master wasn’t needed. But to her, it was a moment of pride. Months of coaching had paid off. The team had internalized the habits, principles, and discipline of Scrum to the point where they could run the event effectively on their own. What looked like redundancy was actually the clearest signal of success.
I recall a situation where I was "testing" the team's ability to self-manage. Our Daily Scrum was at 10:00 every day in front of our Scrum Board. My desk sat slightly in front of the board, and I pretended to be on a call right at 9:59 to see if the team would wait for me to finish or just move on.
It took them a few minutes to glance around and see where I was, but once they saw me at my desk, they carried on. I quietly celebrated that they finished the Daily Scrum and owned it all on their own. This was a stepping stone for the team to learn how to manage daily communication and work independently.
What.
The Scrum Master’s goal is to help teams become self-managing. That involves teaching them how to inspect and adapt, protect focus, and continually improve without needing constant outside help.
The best Scrum Masters are not essential; they are growth-focused. Their aim isn’t to create dependency but to build confidence and skills, so the team eventually needs less direct involvement. In other words, independence is the key measure. Even the top teams in the world still need a coach, but we hope the coaching they require is about growth, not day-to-day facilitation.
Think of the top NFL teams that won the Super Bowl. They don't get on their plane afterward and say, "we've arrived, we are the best in the world, we no longer need our coach"!
I’d argue they need them even more now to avoid complacency.
So What?
The challenge is that leaders often misinterpret this independence. When a team appears to function smoothly without a visible Scrum Master, executives may assume the role is unnecessary. This misunderstanding leads to undervaluing or even cutting the role, missing the fact that the team’s self-sufficiency was cultivated by deliberate coaching.
Just as a teacher’s success is measured by students’ ability to learn and apply knowledge independently (not some standardized test), a Scrum Master’s success is reflected in a team that doesn’t rely on them for day-to-day operations.
The absence of visible effort doesn’t mean lack of value; it means the value has taken root.
Now What?
Scrum Masters should reframe independence as a visible outcome of their work:
Share stories with leaders about how teams handled events or blockers autonomously.
Use maturity assessments to show progress in team self-organization over time (keyword is over time, not just the last Sprint).
Position themselves as coaches working on the next horizon (systemic impediments, enterprise coaching, leadership enablement) while the team owns the basics.
By doing this, they turn “redundancy” into a success metric leaders can recognize and celebrate.
Let's Do This!
A Scrum Master’s best work is often when they’re least needed. Teams that can self-organize, plan, and adapt without external hand-holding aren’t proof that the role has failed; they’re proof that it has succeeded.
True agility is measured not by dependence on a coach, but by the team’s ability to thrive in complexity on its own. And when that happens, the Scrum Master’s impact isn’t gone; it’s embedded.