Question: There are three roles defined in Scrum: Team, Product Owner and Scrum Master. There is no project manager, instead the **project manager job is spread across the three roles**. 

For instance:

* **The Scrum Master:** Responsible for the process. Removes impediments.
* **The Product Owner:** Manages and prioritizes the list of work to be done to maximize ROI. Represents all interested parties (customers, stakeholders).
* **The Team:** Self manage its work by estimating and distributing it among themselves. Responsible for meeting their own commitments.

So in Scrum, there is no longer a single person responsible for project success. There is no command-and-control structure in place. That seems to baffle a lot of people, specifically those not used to agile methods, and of course, PM's. 

I'm really interested in this and what your experiences are, as I think this is one of the things that can make or break a Scrum implementation.

***Do you agree with Scrum that a project manager is not needed? Do you think such a role is still required? Why?***

Answer: 
Maybe you should present things like this:

> 
> The project manager did not disappear in **Scrum**. He is still there. There is **three** of them now!
> 
> 
> 

* **The Scrum Master**: he manages the process and solve impediments. That was the responsibility of the project manager before.
* **The Product Owner**: he manages the backlog. That was the responsibility of the project manager before when he predicted everything in Microsoft Project.
* **The Team**: self manage its production. Who and how a given user story is converted into a potentially releasable product increment. That was the responsibility of the project manager when he assigned tasks.
This question smells of [Scrumbut](http://www.scrum.org/scrumbut "'reasons why teams can’t take full advantage of Scrum...'").

Scrum is a subset of what is contained in a project management method (Prince2/PMP etc). In fact, if you look at the Prince2 process MP (managing product delivery), all the elements of Scrum can be contained there.

The Scrum Master does not want to get bogged down in meetings with vendors, personnel, legal, finance, suppliers, executives or [BAU](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_as_usual_%28business%29 "business as usual") activity. They need to concentrate on removing impediments from the team on the current sprint, not negotiating how much an employment agency can cream off contractor rates in FY2011/12 or validating the escrow agreement with vendor x. 

If your Scrum Master is doing the above, you are not running Scrum, you are running Scrumbut.

From experience the best combination is to have a Scrum Master for each team-lead and a project manager to coordinate the scrum masters in a Scrum of scrums fashion. Having a project manager in this role more effective due to reasons given above and their depth of experience. In turn, these project managers report into a Portfolio/Program Manager etc and all in the chain of command are at least certified Scrum Masters.

Remember that Scrum is a tool for managing product delivery, at a layer of abstraction it can be used to run projects, but there are already far better processes out there for that.