Timekeeping for Scrum Masters
I am fairly new scrum master (1 year).
We use Azure to manage chores of tracking stories and sprint progress by working the Burn Down chart against remaining hours per task/story.
Manager is insisting that Scrum Master and PO contribute to Team capacity by recording tasks for such as sprint planning, story grooming, meetings, and board management. These tasks should be part of the sprint commitment and show hours consumed..
That does not feel right to me but I am having a hard time finding anything to support my position.
Any thoughts on how I should respond.
Either for or against this request.
The Product Owner and Scrum Master roles are not included in this count unless they are also executing the work of the Sprint Backlog.
At any point in time in a Sprint, the total work remaining in the Sprint Backlog can be summed. The Development Team tracks this total work remaining at least for every Daily Scrum to project the likelihood of achieving the Sprint Goal.
These are the two excerpts from the Scrum Guide that may perhaps help you make your point.
I would try to challenge the manager (in a friendly way) and ask how this practice adds value? What do hours consumed show if you can't meet the outcomes?
What problem is this "manager" trying to solve? Why isn't a self-managing team being allowed to determine their own Sprint Goal commitment, and how they gauge work remaining?
I'm not saying this is your situation, but it reminds me of things I've encountered…
I've worked in situations in the past, where managers were seemingly more interested in having numbers to pass on to their own managers, than in helping the team perform effectively.
It can be a sign of certain types of company culture, and potentially a toxic problem for agility, which is near-impossible to solve by yourself.
Be aware of the limitations with this. You might uncover deep-rooted attitudes that are problematic to benefiting from Scrum or any agile approach. You may ultimately quit in frustration, or just an acceptance at what can be achieved.
But your role mandates you to challenge such long held norms, and shine a spotlight on the problems they cause.
You might experience waves of joy and irritation as you do this. You will probably gain a lot of useful experience from it too.
What accountability exists for value delivered? Is that accountability compatible with the Scrum Guide? If so, why is that not sufficient for the manager?
Thanks for the feedback.
1) I need to consult the Scrum Guide more often.
2) Manager believes that this is how SM's should be accounting for their time - he has seen it done like this elsewhere in the past.
3) I think I need to find alternative ways for measuring sprint productivity / accountability.
I think it's important to consider what capacity is being used for. I look at it as an input to Sprint Planning. It provides the team with a data point to help them forecast how much work they may be able to complete in the coming Sprint.
I'm curious how your team is using this data. If they're using it as I've stated, do you (or the line manager) believe having the Scrum Master or PO capacity listed will better help the team forecast their work?