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: 
**Project manager:** a role within a traditional organization or enterprise.

**Scrum master:** a role within a software development team using the Scrum methodology.

Talking about project manager vs. scrum master is really talking about apples and oranges because the roles have different contexts. I've never heard of an organization that has "Scrum master" as an official title or pay grade. And project managers on any project, Scrum or otherwise, are often somewhat removed from day-to-day software development activities.

Exactly what a project manager does and how much his/her role overlaps with that of a Scrum master or project owner depends heavily on the size and nature of the project, but there are certainly tasks normally attributed to a project manager that aren't specifically part of the Scrum master or project owner roles. On a small project it may be possible to expand the duties of the Scrum master or project owner roles to include those tasks (hiring, firing, purchasing, contract management, interfacing with higher-level executives, etc.). On a larger project, software development is just one part of project management, and the duties of the project manager and those of the Scrum master are unlikely to overlap much at all.

A project manager should be the Scrum master's interface to the organization. The Scrum master should be the project manager's interface to the team.

**So, are project managers useful in Scrum?** No, project managers are useful outside Scrum. They're not part of the Scrum software development methodology, but they provide the resources that allow Scrum to work.
The Scrum roles are quite well defined (if they seem vague it is because they are meant to be applicable in different types of organizations), and since Scrum teams are always (well, commonly) of about the same size - i.e. not very big - it is relatively easy to agree on what they encompass, even if that varies depending on the underlying organization.

Reading the question, answers and comments above, it seems obvious that the definition of the project manager role is much more difficult to nail down. I am sure that you can find a nice and compendious general definition of a PM's role, but what that actually means in real life is a totally different story.

Anyway, as it works at my job, the project managers are very seldom involved with the actual "Scrumming". They are not allowed to be Scrum masters (a local conflict-of-interest rule that we all are quite happy about), and they are only product owners in exceptional cases.

So where I work, the project managers are still there, doing pretty much what they always have done. Meaning that they keep the project on track, act as a filter against too much paranoia and micro-management tendencies from "above", solving problems that need a more clout than we posses to solve, and so on.

I'm sure that this is quite different at other places, but for us it works great.

**Edit**: Maybe I should clarify that for us, a Scrum team does not *replace* a project team. One or more Scrum teams are started to perform the actual development work *for* (and usually in) a project. The Scrum team(s) can (and probably always do) consist of the old team members, except for the project leader :-)