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Shouldn't the Scrum Team be given priority over Senior Management for removing impediments?

Last post 01:12 pm April 30, 2018 by Timothy Baffa
7 replies
01:49 am April 22, 2018

In one of the Practice Exam, I saw a question and its answer as given below.

Q. Who supports the Scrum Master in removing impediments? (Choose 2 answers)

Ans.

a) The PO                                      - Incorrect

b) The Senior Management          - Correct

c) The customer                            - Incorrect

d) The Dev Team                          -  Correct

 

I have a concern with Senior Management being given as 'Correct' option and PO being given as 'Incorrect' option. I believe Scrum Team is given priority over everything else in helping the other members of Scrum Team. What should be the right answer.


01:23 pm April 24, 2018

Where did this question come from?   You need to be wary of other sites that claim to have sample Scrum exams, but contains questions that are poorly-worded or actually have a poor understanding of Scrum.   

Are there different types of impediments (ex: dev team, Scrum Team, organization, process)?   If so, would the Scrum Master look to different resources to assist with impediment removal?

Does the Scrum Guide say anything about who may help the Scrum Master in removing impediments?   


06:22 pm April 24, 2018

I skimmed through the Scrum Guide and could not find any direct answer to your question.  However, given the fact that Scrum Teams are supposed to be self-organized, they should solve their problems internally.

I think the correct answers to the question are:  A) Product Owner and D) Development Team.


10:53 pm April 24, 2018

Kevin, I'm inclined to agree with you.  A Scrum Team is supposed to be self-directing and ideally work through problems internally first.  There is no "senior management" defined in Scrum, so it's perfectly feasible to have a Scrum Team operating with no senior management available to them.

My guess is that the Product Owner was excluded as a correct answer because their primary role is to manage the product backlog and stakeholder expectations, not to remove impediments from the development team.  The only impediments a PO would be particularly useful for addressing would be task elaboration, or re-prioritizing tasks to address dependencies between items on the backlog.  However I would say they're part of the team, and if appropriate, should be involved in removing the impediments.


06:15 am April 25, 2018

The Scrum Guide says:

“The Scrum Master helps those outside the Scrum Team understand which of their interactions with the Scrum Team are helpful and which aren’t. The Scrum Master helps everyone change these interactions to maximize the value created by the Scrum Team.”

Would any stakeholder in the team’s success have reason not to help the Scrum Master to remove impediments?


02:48 pm April 26, 2018

Thanks, everyone. Based on all of your responses, I now feel more comfortable with selecting 'PO' as correct option over Senior Management.


12:27 am April 28, 2018

Out of the above all can support the Scrum master to remove impediments, why not ? .. but to select 2 out the above can be tricky, the best bet would be members of scrum team itself PO and DT.


01:12 pm April 30, 2018

Again, this is a poorly-worded question, and we should be very conscious in attempting to provide an answer to it.

Just my opinion, but wouldn't the type of impediment determine who may be best-suited to help remove or mitigate it?


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