Strategic vs Tactical
As a Scrum Master when should you be Strategic and when should you be Tactical?
Hello 👋, It’s Vibhor. Welcome to the 🔥 paid member only🔥 edition of Winning Strategy: A newsletter focused on enhancing product, process, team, and career performance. Many subscribers expense this newsletter to their Learning & Development budget. Here’s an expense template to send to your manager.
I still remember the day I made the wrong call.
The development team was debating how to implement a new feature. As their Scrum Master, I jumped right in with tactical solutions. "Let's split this user story and create a spike for the complex parts."
Two sprints later, the team was still struggling.
What the team actually needed was someone to step back and ask the strategic questions:
"Why is this feature causing so much friction?”
“Is it aligned with our overall product direction?”
“Do we have the right people involved?"
Many Scrum Masters fall into the same trap. They either get too deep into day-to-day tactics or get too high in strategic thinking without addressing immediate team needs.
They get confused about things like:
Should I focus on team-level execution or organizational alignment?
When is my role to address immediate issues versus influence long-term change?
How do I ensure I’m not over-focusing on one at the expense of the other?
These are required questions because leaning too far in either direction can undermine your ability to effectively help your team.
In this post, we’ll learn:
the difference between strategic and tactical thinking
common examples where each approach is essential
tips to seamlessly switch between the two mindsets
Let’s get started.
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Strategic vs Tactical. What’s the difference?
As Scrum Masters, you often hear these words: strategic and tactical. But what do they actually mean?