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Part-time team members

Last post 07:52 pm January 11, 2015 by Karl Butler
3 replies
06:43 pm January 8, 2015

There is a Development Team member who does not work full-time. He makes himself available for almost all Events excepts for 2 Daily Scrums per week (works roughly 3 days per week).

This mostly works fine, however I have noticed lapses in communication due to the incomplete transparency of the situation and of course there are 2 days a week where there is a missed opportunity to inspect and adapt with the entire team present.

Personally I would prefer to have all full-timers and have voiced my opinion, however this is not a practical reality for us at this stage and I greatly appreciate the value this person adds to the team. He is a great developer.

Does anyone have any guidance for this situation or part-time situations in general?

I would also be interested to hear about other peoples experiences working with part-time members in Scrum.


04:20 am January 9, 2015

If a Development Team can't take something for granted...such as the availability of a team member...then they must plan accordingly. In other words, the team should formulate each Sprint Plan to take projected availability into account.

If a Sprint Plan consists largely of tasks, this could mean planning in certain tasks in which the part-time team member is brought up to speed, or otherwise engaged in peer activities that facilitate knowledge sharing.


10:43 am January 9, 2015

It is similar to the situation that I experience with some people working from home one or twice a week.
It is not ideal but some ways we dealt with is:
1. Email the update to SM and SM updates the team
2. Phone in during the scrum
It is not a show stopper
On the team of 8 there is always someone who will be off sick or working from home or whatever, so you need to be flexible to accommodate.


07:52 pm January 11, 2015

Thanks Roman, some good ideas there. I'll suggest them to the team.


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