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Daily Scrum Impediments and Scrum Master Role

Last post 10:38 am February 1, 2017 by Naveen Kolli
10 replies
11:24 am January 17, 2017

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post on the question I had on the Scrum. While going through the Scrum Guide in preparation to PSM I, had this question in my mind, could anyone please help clarify:

- While the Daily scrum is conducted by the Development team and the Scrum master is not necessarily required to participate.
- The development team explaining:
- What did I do yesterday,
- What will I do today
- and Do I see any Impediments.
- On the other hand the Scrum Master servers the Development team in Removing the impediments to the Development Team’s progress.

How are these Impediments discussed in the Daily Scrum are communicated or known to the Scrum Master for solving them

Thank you,

Naveen


06:37 pm January 17, 2017

It's perfectly reasonable for the Development Team to leave their Daily Scrum with a list of impediments for the Scrum Master to solve.

Of course they don't need to wait until the Daily Scrum to do that; they can collaborate and identify impediments earlier, when resolution may be more effective. The Daily Scrum is merely a formal opportunity for them to do so.


09:25 pm January 17, 2017

I believe development team should communicate impediments to the scrum master as soon as it arises. Team discuss it in the daily scrum to keep everyone on the same page and increase transparency


04:24 am January 18, 2017


Preferably only those impediments that Development Team cannot resolve themselves


08:34 am January 18, 2017


Posted By Sanjay Saini on 18 Jan 2017 04:24 AM

Preferably only those impediments that Development Team cannot resolve themselves



This is an interesting comment because I agree to some extent. I think the SM should ask the correct questions, which leads the Dev Team to resolving it themselves. For example, "Impediment: We don't have permissions to this folder." As a SM, I'd want to ask, "have you requested permissions?" If they say no, then I think it's something the Development Team should handle. If they say yes and there has been no response, etc., then I think it's for the SM to try and resolve.

What 'impediments' do other SMs here actually find themselves resolving? Are they small day to day impediments or are they typically greater, organisational impediments?


11:58 am January 18, 2017

If the team is collocated, can use the physical Scrum Board where impediments are written down, else email or any other online tools where Scrum Board is maintained can be used. Good practice is to respect the scrum board well and ensuring that Scrum team views and updates it everyday.

Pankaj


12:37 pm January 18, 2017

Ian,

Is there any time frame to solve the impediments raised by Development Team by SM. In case if it is not resolved what would happen to the sprint. Is the best practice to find the impediments on the sprint planning itself?

Thanks
Senthil


01:46 pm January 18, 2017

What do you think about the idea of identifying and resolving impediments as soon as possible? For example, what do you think the effect would be in regards to the accumulation of waste?


03:48 am January 19, 2017


Re: finding all impediments in the Sprint planning - don't you think we are moving towards Waterfall by listing all assumptions, dependencies, risks upfront.

Software development is a complex world where things change over time and we may not be able to identify all impediments in the Sprint Planning.


07:59 am January 19, 2017

Trying to deal with impediments too early can be expected to lead to waste as well. They may not be understood well enough to do so and a precocious mitigation attempt could result in lost effort.

Identifying and resolving impediments as soon as possible also means doing so at the last responsible moment. That's the most opportune time. One approach to their management is to use a RAID backlog whereby risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies are subject to prioritization and refinement.


10:38 am February 1, 2017

Thank you all for the insights. I am exited to share with you that I have cleared the PSM I with 90%.


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