28
votes
Accepted
Should I ask my boss not to come to retrospectives?
It sounds like you have team members from high power distance cultures. People may not speak up when the boss is in the room because their values require them to listen and follow, not to advise or ...
- 396
25
votes
Accepted
What can a Scrum Master do in a team that has mastered scrum?
I don't think there is a simple answer to this question. Instead, I think there are a number of different scenarios:
A team is very experienced in Scrum and rotates the Scrum Master role. They have ...
- 19.6k
24
votes
Hot swapping people in a scrum team
The situation you describe is Scrum Zombie, not Scrum. My answer will try to organize a few of the aspects you mentioned.
Software developers are not resources
business needs the resource and cannot ...
- 1,107
24
votes
Accepted
What is a failed sprint?
According to Mike Cohn
It’s quite common for a team to have a bit of unfinished work at the end of an agile sprint or iteration. Ideally, a team would finish every item on its sprint backlog every ...
- 2,084
19
votes
Does the scrum master also estimate user stories?
If you do development work in the sprint, you should estimate. If you don't, then it's better you skip on providing your own story points estimates.
You can help your team with information and advice, ...
- 15.4k
16
votes
Accepted
Sprint vs milestone vs release
Sprint
In the Scrum Framework all activities needed for the implementation of entries from the Scrum Product Backlog are performed within Sprints (also called 'Iterations'). Sprints are always short: ...
- 559
16
votes
Accepted
How can we register the technical debt in Scrum?
Scrum Exposes Technical Debt Through Forecasts & Estimates
As a general rule, technical debt increases the cost of future work on the product. So, even if you don't explicitly keep track of the ...
- 50.7k
16
votes
Should I ask my boss not to come to retrospectives?
Analysis
There is a chilling effect when he is here. Am I overreacting? Should I just try to build up the confidence of the team? or should I ban my boss from the retrospective?
In my experience, ...
- 50.7k
15
votes
How technical should a Scrum Master be to effectively remove impediments?
Am I missing something?
I think you are missing the main point of "impediment", that is a blocker that the team is not equipped to handle themselves. The Scrum Master is not supposed to be a better ...
- 8,650
15
votes
Should the Product Owner be from our organization or the company we are contracting with?
And I'm going to take the middle ground between Bogdan and Thomas...
Whichever side has the more competent PO.
Bogdan already listed the responsibilities of a PO. To (over)simplify it in a single ...
- 14.8k
14
votes
Not sure what value the Scrum Master role adds over a long period of time?
Great question! A lot of Scrum Masters get boxed into Scrum Facilitators early on because that's what a team learning Scrum largely needs. However, as the team gets better at organizing itself, the ...
- 16.9k
14
votes
Accepted
How to measure if Scrum Master is making a difference and when to give up
The key to team improvement is good retrospectives.
When I started running retrospectives, I found they often just degenerated into whingeing sessions that didn't achieve much, other than giving the ...
- 589
14
votes
Accepted
Should the Product Owner be from our organization or the company we are contracting with?
There is no canonical answer to this question, although as a rule of thumb, it would be better for the PO to be from the client side, not the contractor side.
The Scrum Guide says this about the PO ...
- 15.4k
13
votes
Accepted
Difference between Scrum Master and Agile Delivery Manager
The "Agile delivery manager" seems to be an undefined/undocumented role, and from what I read in the job openings is mostly a combination of a Project Manager, a Product Owner and a Scrum Master. ...
- 5,553
13
votes
Accepted
Is Team member sharing possible in Scrum during a Sprint?
TLDR: Beware the 100% utilization fallacy.
I'm going to ignore your stated question ('is this normal?') and instead attempt to answer the underlying question.
Swarming is possible
As per the Scrum ...
- 14.8k
13
votes
Accepted
Conflict between priorities and skillsets in the backlog
The Scrum Guide does not talk about prioritizing the Product Backlog. Instead, it talks about ordering the Product Backlog. Priority is only one factor that can be used to determine the ordering of ...
- 19.8k
13
votes
Agile Retrospective: Comments Anonymous?
The retrospectives I facilitate are not anonymous.
If a team member asked me to allow anonymous comments I would certainly do so. I would then try and investigate why psychological safety was so low ...
- 19.6k
12
votes
Accepted
Can scrum master interrupt team member during daily Scrum?
Is it the responsibility of the Scrum master to intervene and interrupt a team member when he/she starts telling about points beyond those 3 that I mentioned?
Technically speaking, no. The purpose ...
- 14.8k
11
votes
What's expected from different career levels for a Scrum Master?
I think the different levels can relate to the Agile Onion as described by Simon Powers.
Entry level: Can implement the tools and processes, but doesn't have a good understanding why the processes, ...
- 5,553
11
votes
Accepted
Problem with in Scrum team - with seniors
Parts of your question smack more of a workplace issue than a Project Management issue, but I'll answer what I can.
Is this common in Scrum teams?
Doesn't really have anything to do with Scrum. ...
- 14.8k
11
votes
How to fill my day as a Scrum Master?
This is a common question. One helpful resource as a starting point is the Scrummaster Checklist. It's not meant to be literally a checklist of things to do each day, but rather a list of things that ...
- 16.9k
11
votes
How to guide a team to be self-organizing?
The question is general to management roles and speaks about "building people up".
Just Googling these 3 words lands countless views and advice — please avoid theoretical and commercial docs, focus ...
- 141
11
votes
What can a Scrum Master do in a team that has mastered scrum?
Robert C. Martin said at one point about the Scrum Master that it:
[...] should be a temporary role, to remind people to follow the steps of the process. It's not a separate job, but something one ...
- 15.4k
11
votes
How can I foster more T-shaping within a Scrum team?
Well, first, "t-shaping" is just abstract theory. It's not a goal that one can grasp. It's not something to achieve. It does not produce anything, earn anything or make anything better. So ...
- 8,650
11
votes
How to improve Scrum Master performance
The first issue with the feedback you received is on what basis was that judgement made? Your team is not fast enough compared to...? If they do not have a cogent basis upon which that judgement was ...
- 37.2k
11
votes
Accepted
What role can scrum master have/take when product owners have different opinions?
The Scrum Master will take the role of a facilitator to help the two POs reach an agreement.
The Scrum Guide says:
The Product Owner is one person, not a committee. The Product Owner may represent ...
- 15.4k
10
votes
Accepted
Daily Standup, Demo, Retrospective - Mandatory? How?
There are two parts to the Scrum Master role:
Helping the team to resolve impediments
Ensuring that Scrum is being followed
The second part often gets neglected, but it is very important.
If the ...
- 19.6k
10
votes
Accepted
What's an easy and sustainable way to introduce pair programming?
How to roll out pairing in a Scrum team?
I am afraid there is no right answer to this. It all depends on the existing team dynamics. Nevertheless, what is almost always relevant is to understand ...
- 854
10
votes
Accepted
Methods to improve daily scrum / standup
You have neglected to say whether your team are face to face or working distributed and communicating via Lync etc so for the sake of this answer I will assume distributed.
Stage 1: Basic Discipline
...
- 4,085
10
votes
What is a failed sprint?
I am personally adverse to the idea of ever saying a sprint 'failed'.
Scrum uses the term 'inspect' 27 times, and 'adapt' 16 times over the course of the guide.
Scrum also has no notion of 'failure'...
- 929
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