Scrum Master → Delivery Manager?

This week, I was about to join Bogdan Onyshchenko’s session ‘From Scrum Master to Delivery Manager, A Necessary Evolution?’, at Scrum Day Europe in Amsterdam.

It proved to be a popular topic because the number of participants exceeded the available seats. For safety reasons, standing wasn’t allowed, so I offered my seat to the woman behind me, who had apparently traveled from Poland to the Netherlands. Yes, I’m such a nice person. 😊

So I didn’t get to hear Bogdan’s take, yet the topic has been on my mind for quite a while. In the UK, several organizations are already moving in this direction, and a few in the Netherlands are openly considering it too. The question is no longer theoretical. The shift is slowly showing up in real teams, even if it’s far from becoming the default.

Reasons I’ve heard so far:

👉 “We’re not doing purely Scrum anymore, so we’re looking for a more generic title.”

Leadership within the organization often tells me the shift is simply practical. They’re no longer working in a clean Scrum setup (they probably never did, but might have had the illusion), so a broader title seems to fit the mixed reality.

👉 “We expect our Scrum Masters to have more skin in the game.”

Another reason I hear is the expectation of more ownership. Some organisations want their Scrum Masters to influence outcomes more directly, make decisions, and carry more weight in delivery. It sounds logical, yet it blurs the original distinction between supporting a team and steering it, and that shift isn’t trivial.

👉 “We want someone who can coordinate all the moving parts.”

A third reason is that work rarely sits neatly in one team. Other teams, suppliers, and shared tech all need to line up for things to actually ship. In that situation, “Scrum Master” can sound too narrow, and “Delivery Manager” suggests someone who can pull the threads together.

I’m unsure what to make of this. 🤷‍♀️

I understand why the shift is happening, yet it also feels like we’re drifting back to classic project management with a different badge. If the role becomes the single coordinator, decision-maker, and delivery owner, the original idea of shared responsibility quietly collapses.

And if Delivery Managers take on orchestration, decision weight, and outcome accountability, one more question surfaces. What happens to the Product Owner?

On a different note, in many organisations, Scrum Masters have little real mandate and struggle to make a dent beyond team facilitation. If this shift gives them room to shape outcomes rather than guard the process, maybe it isn’t entirely negative.

What are your thoughts on this?