I'm working on a project right now with a Developer who has taken on the role of Scrum Master. Because he's the primary contact on the client site, he has unwittingly become the recipient of all the stress that normally falls to the PM. While he has been in the Tech Lead role before, and had to deal with the issues that normally accompany herding developers, he is now also dealing with more "administrative" issues like staffing challenges, basic attendance, billing, and general client management stress and concerns.

The more I watch, the more I see him accidentally evolving into the mindset of a PM. It is at times humorous and painful. At the end of this project, like it or not, his brain will have been re-wired to think like a PM.

I love being a PM because I am good at it, but I do sometimes wonder, if I could go back to that moment when I found the copy of Microsoft Project 3 in the closet at Nick Online and stop myself from starting down this path that would lead to the stress and angst that have become the oxygen of my professional life, would I not feel compelled to forcibly remove myself from that closet before the damage was done?