Fractional Agile Roles for Startups and Growing Enterprises

Your Team Needs
A Scrum Master.
Not a $120K Hire.

Expert agile leadership — fractional, certified, and plugged into your team from day one. No full-time overhead. No rookie contractors.

✓

You're on the list. Joel Harned will reach out personally within 24 hours to schedule your free Sprint Health Assessment.

Free Sprint Health Assessment included. No credit card. No commitment.

$120K+
Full-time SM salary avoided
48 hrs
Team onboarding window
SAFe™
Certified. Experienced. Vetted.
10 hrs
Minimum engagement
The Problem

Most Teams Run Broken Agile

They have the ceremonies. They call it a sprint. But without an experienced Scrum Master, it's structured chaos with a standup in the middle.

🔥
Standups That Drain Energy
45-minute daily syncs that surface problems but solve nothing. Everyone leaves more confused than when they started.
📋
Backlogs Nobody Owns
Hundreds of tickets, zero prioritization logic. The team works on whatever was asked for most recently, not what matters most.
🔄
Sprints Without Velocity
Every two weeks feels like a reset. No metrics, no improvement, no visibility into whether the team is actually getting faster.
🧱
Blockers That Linger for Weeks
Nobody owns blocker removal. Dependencies get identified in retros and promptly forgotten until the next retro.
💸
Can't Justify a Full-Time SM
You know you need the structure. But $100K–$130K for one person to run ceremonies? The math doesn't work for most teams.
⚡
No Operating Model at Standup
Teams spin up fast — especially on new contracts or post-pivot — with no playbook, no cadence, and no one accountable for team health.
The Fix

Fractional SM.
Full Results.

A certified Scrum Master embedded part-time in your team — running your ceremonies, owning your backlog health, and coaching your people to build capability that sticks.

  • ✓
    Sprint ceremonies that actually work Planning, standups, reviews, and retros facilitated by someone who does this for a living.
  • ✓
    Backlog hygiene from day one Properly sized, prioritized, and owned. Your team always knows what's next and why.
  • ✓
    Real velocity and team health metrics Know exactly how your team is trending. No guessing. No feel-based reporting.
  • ✓
    Scale up or down with zero overhead Need more hours during a launch? Pull back post-stabilization. No severance, no HR headache.
  • ✓
    SAFe-certified expertise, not gig work Every practitioner is certified and vetted. This isn't a marketplace — it's a curated network.
Without SM|OS™
No ceremony ownership
Backlog grows uncontrolled
Blockers sit unresolved
Zero velocity tracking
Team burnout unchecked
→
With SM|OS™
Ceremonies run crisp
Backlog always groomed
Blockers removed fast
Velocity visible weekly
Team rhythm established
How It Works

Up and Running in 5 Steps

From your first conversation to a fully operating agile team — typically inside two weeks.

01
Sprint Health Assessment
Free 15-min diagnostic call to map your team's current state and pain points.
02
SM Match & Kickoff
Matched to a certified SM aligned to your domain, team size, and cadence.
03
Team Onboarding
Ceremonies structured, backlog organized, and your operating rhythm established.
04
Active Sprint Runs
Your SM facilitates weekly, removes blockers, and tracks velocity in real time.
05
Optimize & Scale
Monthly metrics, team coaching, and the option to scale hours or add a second team.
Engagement Tiers

Simple, Transparent Pricing

Retainer-based engagements mean predictable costs for you and committed focus from your SM. No surprise invoices.

Sprint Starter
$1,500
/ month · 10 hours
  • Sprint planning + retrospective facilitation
  • Backlog review and prioritization session
  • Async Slack or Teams support
  • Monthly team health snapshot
  • Best for: early-stage teams establishing cadence
  • One-time Sprint Zero setup fee: $2,000
Most Popular
Team Cadence
$2,800
/ month · 20 hours
  • Full sprint ceremony ownership end-to-end
  • Daily standup facilitation
  • Velocity and burndown chart tracking
  • Active blocker removal and stakeholder updates
  • Team coaching and continuous improvement rituals
Agile Launch
Let's Talk
Project-based · RTE available
  • New team build-out from scratch
  • PI Planning facilitation (SAFe)
  • Multi-team coordination and ART support
  • Federal contractor and GovCon engagements
  • SM network placement for scale
Who It's For

Built for Teams That Move Fast

If your team is growing, spinning up, or reorganizing — and the agile operating model isn't keeping pace — this was designed for you.

🚀
Funded Startups
Series A/B teams scaling their first product org and running sprints without structure or discipline.
🏗️
Product Teams in Growth Mode
Mid-market product orgs adding teams faster than their agile practices can scale.
🤝
Boutique Federal Contractors
New contract awards that need an operating model stood up fast — before the first sprint review with a government client.
⚡
Teams Post-Reorg or Pivot
Existing teams that just reshuffled and need someone to reset the rhythm and rebuild team trust quickly.
🏢
SMBs Scaling Their First Dev Team
Small businesses hiring their first engineers who need an agile operating model — without the enterprise overhead.
📋
Agile-Adjacent Organizations
Teams familiar with agile terminology but running it informally — and ready to do it properly.
JH

"I've helped stand up Agile Release Trains with 150+ people in under 60 days. I've seen what structured agile does to a team's velocity, morale, and delivery consistency. ScrumMaster|OS™ exists because that expertise shouldn't only be available to large federal agencies and Fortune 500s."

Joel Harned Founder, ScrumMaster|OS™ · HyprPlus, LLC
SAFe SPC RTE CSM Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
Get Early Access

Book Your Free
Sprint Health Assessment

15 minutes. No pitch. Just a clear, honest picture of where your team's agile practice stands — and what it would take to fix it.

✓

You're in. Joel Harned will reach out within 24 hours to find a time that works. Talk soon.

No spam. No sales sequence. Just a real conversation.