Agile Coaches' Corner Scrum Master Q&A with Sam Falco
This week on Agile Coaches’ Corner, Sam Falco is taking over the podcast! He’s gathered up some interesting questions on the topic of Scrum through Quora and will be going through them one by one to give his insights and key points regarding each!
Tune in to hear Sam’s take on what the purpose and benefits are of a daily Scrum meeting, the best way to resolve the issue of a team member taking up too much time at the daily Scrums, and whether or not he thinks the role of the Scrum Master should be temporary in a Scrum team until the team is self-organizing!
Key Takeaways
What is the purpose, as well as the benefits, of a daily Scrum meeting?
The Scrum guide states that the purpose is for the development team to plan its work for the next 24 hours
To inspect the work the team has done since the last time they’ve met and adapt the plan accordingly to achieve the sprint goal
It’s all about helping the development team to meet the sprint goal
You should be getting a new plan out of the daily Scrum meeting that takes into consideration the new data you’ve gathered since the last time you met
A team member is taking too much time at daily Scrums — what’s the best way to resolve this issue as the Scrum Master?
Firstly, remember the purpose of the daily Scrum: to inspect the work and adapt the plan to achieve the sprint goal, and ask: is that still happening in the allotted timeframe? If it is, it’s really not a problem for the Scrum Master to solve
It could be a real problem when it’s leading to the daily Scrum taking way too long, people begin ‘checking out’ in the middle of it, or it’s preventing the team from self-organizing
Don’t jump in right away as the Scrum Master; your role is to simply make sure the development team has the event and teach them to keep it in the timebox
Consider pointing out that the meeting has been taking too long to the team and allow them to solve it themselves
Consider coming up with a signal when someone is taking an unnecessary deep dive into a topic (but make sure the team isn’t relying on this method to the point where they’ll struggle to self-organize)
Bring up the problem at a retrospective, let the team decide whether it’s a problem or not and how they want to handle it, and then give them guidance based on that feedback
Should the role of Scrum Master be temporary in a Scrum team until the team is self-organizing?
The Scrum Guide argues that no, it wouldn’t be Scrum, because if you do away with any of the rules and roles in Scrum (though possible) the result becomes something that is not Scrum
The presence of the Scrum Master on the team will vary depending on the team, but early on it is especially important that they need to be involved quite a bit
As the team matures and learns to self-organize, the Scrum Master could shift their role from working on the rules of Scrum and how to apply them to help the team determine better engineering practices
It’s not practical to think that the team will never need their Scrum Master again (as the Scrum Master does more than facilitate meetings and teach the Scrum framework)
Ultimately, it’s important that the team is able to call upon their Scrum Master
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