Submitted by topcoder on August 17, 2007 - 2:27am.
As per my experience when the ScrumMaster is a non participating one - ie he does not take on development tasks sooner or later he becomes more like a project manager and this is a major scrum smell which you would like to avoid. This happens because the SM is not longer treated by the team as a team member and slowly they begin to accept whatever he says as order and quickly revert pre-scrum habits. Therefore I would not consider part time SMs. It may work for some teams but not for the ones I've seen.
As per my experience when the ScrumMaster is a non participating one - ie he does not take on development tasks sooner or later he becomes more like a project manager and this is a major scrum smell which you would like to avoid. This happens because the SM is not longer treated by the team as a team member and slowly they begin to accept whatever he says as order and quickly revert pre-scrum habits. Therefore I would not consider part time SMs. It may work for some teams but not for the ones I've seen.
Plamen RB CSM, MCSD