During theAgile Tour Montpellier 2024, we, Emmanuel Sunyer and Thomas Serre, led a workshop on a central question: how is AI redefining the role of the Scrum Master and Agile Coach in the face of AI? Are we ready to recalibrate our skills to cope with it? This reflection echoes another experiment we conducted in our test of ChatGPT as an agile coach.
As you will see, the feedback from experts such as Henrik Kniberg and Kent Beck underlines one essential point: we agile professionals need to rethink our postures and skills. The aim is not to fight artificial intelligence, but to integrate it effectively into our daily practice.
Scrum Master and Agile Coach facing AI: the genesis of our reflection
Since 2022, artificial intelligence has shaken up many sectors. For the agile community, the question is how the roles of Scrum Master and Agile Coach will evolve in the face of these powerful tools.
In March 2024, the article " Agile in the Age of AI " launched the debate. It spoke of a radical shift in our postures as agile coaches, supported by influential voices. Henrik Kniberg, for example, announced that our role "is becoming more that of a coach and less that of a mentor/teacher".
This idea was reinforced by Kent Beck, one of the pioneers of agility. After initial reluctance, he recognized that 90% of his usual skills had been challenged by the adoption of technologies like ChatGPT. The remaining 10% had been leveraged a thousandfold.
These findings illustrate the need for agile professionals to recalibrate their skills to remain relevant in a constantly evolving environment.
To structure this reflection, we have drawn on the Agile Coach competency framework by Lyssa Adkins and Michael K. Spayd. This model distinguishes four fundamental postures:
- The Trainer, who transmits knowledge ;
- The Mentor, who guides and shares his experience;
- The Professional Coach, who facilitates personal development;
- The Facilitator, who facilitates group dynamics.
The workshop offered at the Agile Tour Montpellier 2024 thus focused on these four postures to understand the impact of AI on each of them.
Scrum Master and Agile Coach faced with AI: collaborative workshop schedule
The workshop was organized in four phases to explore, with the 48 participants (8 tables of 6), how artificial intelligence could impact or amplify the key skills of each posture.
Hatching #1: Identify core competencies
We invited participants to brainstorm together on an essential skill for each posture (Trainer, Mentor, Professional Coach and Facilitator). This brainstorming session highlighted what they considered to be the heart of the profession.
At each table, there was a 2-minute solo session, followed by an 8-minute sextuor session to define a master skill for each posture.
Harvest #1: Creating a live mind map
The skills identified were then recorded in real time on a projected mind map. This visual tool served as a common basis for reflection for the rest of the workshop, making the links between skills and postures clear to all.
For example, for the Mentor posture, the skills selected were: guidance, leadership, experience, ability to inspire, ability to orientate.
Hatching #2: Identifying "AI-compatible" skills
In this second phase, participants evaluated each skill to determine whether it could be replaced (totally or partially) or augmented by AI. This led to an enriching debate on the current and future limits of AI. Following the assertion = "Skill XXX is now on the AI's side" and a Roman vote (+1 / 0 / -1), with a true result if the table's total votes were greater than or equal to 3.
For example, when it comes to trainer skills, AI has been entrusted with mastery of the subject, while pedagogy has remained on the human side.
Harvest #2: Update the mind map
The map was updated live to illustrate the separation between skills augmented or replaced by AI and those that remain purely human. This visual work reinforced our collective understanding of the areas where AI can bring real leverage and those where the human remains irreplaceable.
For more information about the workshop, please contact me directly.
Scrum Master and Agile Coach facing AI: workshop and lessons learned
After these ideation phases, participants voted to determine the skill(s) per posture that could be achieved by or with the help of AI.
Results: key competencies by posture for Scrum Master and Agile Coach facing AI
Trainer : Mastering the subject
Even if AI (like an LLM) can quickly provide reliable content, the trainer's value lies less in raw knowledge than in his or her ability to contextualize and transmit.
Mentor: ability to guide
Participants felt that AI could be a guidance assistant, but that it cannot replace the intuition and lived experience of a human mentor.
Professional coaching: Analytical skills
While AI can identify trends, fine-tuned interpretation and adaptation to human complexity remain essential human assets.
Facilitator: No replaceable skills
Participants were unanimous in not identifying any skills that could be completely delegated to AI. The management of human interactions, the creation of a climate of trust and the reading of group dynamics were perceived as profoundly human.
Collective analysis
A number of observations emerged from the discussions:
- The skills most "replaceable" by AI concern accessing and processing information, not human relations.
- Participants value nuance, interpretation and emotion as intrinsically human dimensions.
- The posture of Facilitator emerges as the most "AI-resistant" because it relies on real-time human dynamics.
In short, AI doesn't remove the value of the Scrum Master or Agile Coach, but it does redraw the playing field by automating repetitive cognitive tasks and reinforcing the human role in relationship and co-construction. The results of the workshop show that Scrum Master and Agile Coach, faced with AI, need to adapt their skills, entrusting certain tasks to intelligent tools while reinforcing the human relationship.
Scrum Master and Agile Coach facing AI: the LLM point of view
To complete our reflection, we interviewed several LLMs language models (ChatGPT, Claud and Gemini) to understand their own vision of the impact on these professions.
Skill results by AI-substitutable posture
Trainer : Content designer
LLMs emphasize that the creation and personalization of educational content can be assisted by AI. This frees up the trainer to focus on transmission and adaptation to human beings.
Mentor: Non-replaceable
According to LLM, the role of mentor is based on human relationships and the sharing of personal experiences. These emotional and contextual dimensions are difficult to simulate.
Professional coach: Powerful questioning
The heart of coaching, powerful questioning, is seen as a profoundly human skill. AI can help prepare leads, but the dynamics of co-creation and emotional understanding are irreplaceable.
Facilitator: Organizing and structuring meetings
Facilitation, in particular the logistics and structuring of exchanges, can be optimized by AI (creation of agendas, summaries...). This allows the human facilitator to concentrate on managing complex interactions.
This study reveals one thing: AI does not replace the relational and strategic dimensions of agile coaching. Rather, it offers a powerful lever for automating repetitive tasks.
A contradiction in terms
It's interesting to note a tension between Henrik Kniberg's assertion ("less mentoring, more coaching") and the result of our study with LLMs. While coaching is confirmed as a human posture, mentoring is also perceived as non-substitutable by AI.
This contradiction calls for a nuanced approach: the mentor does not disappear, but evolves. AI encourages us to rethink these roles not as opposites, but as complementarities.
Conclusion
Towards a collaborative future: human + AI
The workshop's exchanges and cross-referenced results with AI lead to a clear observation: the future of the Scrum Master and Agile Coach lies in collaboration with AI.
AI is a powerful assistant for repetitive tasks, freeing up time for the more human dimensions of the role. For their part, the participants highlighted skills rooted in experience, intuition and judgment - all elements that are difficult to simulate.
This complementarity paves the way for a recalibration of postures:
- Entrust predictable tasks to AI;
- Cultivate interpersonal, contextual analysis and orientation skills.
As Jeff Sutherland sums it up so well: "The big winners are neither humans alone against machines, nor machines alone against humans, but human teams that integrate machines as team members."
Scrum Master and Agile Coach facing AI don't disappear, they reinvent themselves
The key will be to integrate AI as a lever, without losing the human dimensions that make these roles so strong. To find out more, discover how ChatGPT can already play the role of an agile coach. The issue is not whether AI will replace certain skills, but how we will integrate it to enrich our impact and our ability to create value.
The question then remains:
- How far are we prepared to delegate our tasks to intelligent tools?
- And above all... what part of our role, 100% human, do we want to develop and refine?
Important noteThese results are relative and should be interpreted with caution. Participants' perceptions depend on their experience, their familiarity with AI and, in the case of the opinions provided by LLMs, the quality of the prompts used. These votes represent a snapshot of a group's intuitions, a starting point for reflection, not a definitive conclusion.
