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Home > Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast > Demonstrating Your Value When the Market Questions Agile Roles | Natalia Curusi
Podcast: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast
Episode:

Demonstrating Your Value When the Market Questions Agile Roles | Natalia Curusi

Category: News & Politics
Duration: 00:18:27
Publish Date: 2025-12-17 11:05:00
Description: Natalia Curusi: Demonstrating Your Value When the Market Questions Agile Roles

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

"My challenging topic is about the demand of agility in the market—how do we fit ourselves as scrum masters in that AI era? How can we demonstrate our competence and contribution when there's a perception that agile roles bring little value?" - Natalia Curusi

Natalia faces the challenge every Scrum Master in 2025 grapples with: how to demonstrate value in an era when business perceives agile roles as optional overhead. The market has contracted, companies are optimizing budgets, and Scrum Masters often appear first on the chopping block.

There's talk of "blended roles" where developers are expected to absorb Scrum Master responsibilities, and questions about how AI might replace the human facilitation work that coaches provide. But Natalia believes the answer lies in understanding something fundamental: the Scrum Master is a deeply situational and contextual role that adapts to what the team needs each day.

Some teams need help with communication spaces, others need work structure like Kanban boards, still others need translation between technical realities and stakeholder expectations. The challenge is that this situational nature makes it incredibly hard to explain to business leaders who think in fixed job descriptions and measurable outputs. Natalia's approach involves bringing metrics—not velocity, which focuses on the wrong things, but metrics around team independence, continuous improvement, and organizational capability. She suggests concepts like Gemba walks—going to see what's actually happening rather than relying only on numbers. The real question Natalia poses is this: the biggest value we can bring to an organization is to leave it better than we found it, but how do we make that visible and tangible to business stakeholders who need justification for our roles?

Self-reflection Question: If you had to demonstrate your value as a Scrum Master using only observable evidence from the past month, what would you show your leadership?

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