[The_Colonel]

That's what I like about "agile roles" like Product Owner or Scrum Master, they take a slice of traditional manager's responsibilities, but they don't have any reporting authority over other workers. My EM has like 30 direct reports and it works fine because he doesn't really have anything to do with our day to day work.

[xorcist]

Those semi-managerial roles are the biggest problem with that model, in my opinion. Sure, it works as long as everything is peachy. But as soon as there are any real conflicts of interest, it will show who is the real manager. And it's not the product owner or scrum master.

With authority comes responsibility for your actions. Without responsibility, no authority. The product manager is a manager in name only, and product owner even less so.

That doesn't mean you can't have several direct reports. The classic matrix organization for example. But it means semi-managers without real responsibility have no real mandate for doing a good job at the slightest hint of trouble.

[The_Colonel]

> But as soon as there are any real conflicts of interest, it will show who is the real manager. And it's not the product owner or scrum master.

If there's a conflict of interest, it needs to be discussed based on merit, not based on who has the bigger authority.

If there's no agreement, it needs to be escalated to somebody who has the authority (manager). But IME this doesn't happen very often.

I like this model, because the default position is that none of the engineering, product, process is the "master", so you need to negotiate. If one of the roles also has reporting authority, that automatically skews the decision making towards yielding to them.

[higeorge13]

30 direct reports? And doesn’t have to do anything with your day to day job?

So what is his job then?

[The_Colonel]

Hiring, performance evaluation, vacation approval, team direction/strategy, managing up etc.

[FireBeyond]

I'm not sure how you can evaluate 30 people you don't interact with closely.

NIMS, the National Incident Management System, talks of ICs having between 3-7 direct reports, when there is a need to be connected to what they are doing, because beyond that, you can't reconcile things easily.

[The_Colonel]

I don't know the exact process, but AFAIK managers pull the evaluation from many people you do interact with (outside and inside the team).