Karen Suarez: How to Design Communication Channels to Protect Agile Team Focus, and Avoid Interruptions

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As a first-time Scrum Master managing a team of 15-20 people, Karen focused primarily on protecting them from constant interruptions in their open office space. However, she soon realized this approach was creating barriers between the team and stakeholders. Karen developed strategies to balance protection with accessibility by establishing "office hours" when the team could be interrupted, creating dedicated communication channels (like Slack) to collect stakeholder questions, and always including the Product Owner when change requests came in. This balanced approach maintained team focus while keeping communication lines open.

In this segment, we refer to the Coach Your Product Owner e-course, available to all who need to support their product owners with understanding, and adopting an Agile way of working.

Self-reflection Question: How might creating structured interruption times help your team maintain focus while still remaining accessible to stakeholders?

Featured Book of the Week: The Scrum Guide

Karen recommends repeatedly reading The Scrum Guide throughout your Agile journey. She finds she learns something new with each reading as her interpretation evolves with experience. Karen also highlights "Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love" by Marty Cagan, which helped her better understand the Product Owner role and gave her practical tools to support POs in their responsibilities.

About Karen Suarez 

Karen is a dedicated Scrum Master with a long experience driving agile transformations and fostering high-performing teams. She is passionate about continuous learning, and excels in aligning agile practices with organizational innovation.

You can link with Karen Suarez on LinkedIn.