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What impediments Scrum Master can remove other than technical impediments?

Last post 06:38 pm March 4, 2022 by Ian Mitchell
9 replies
11:08 am November 18, 2021

01:15 pm November 18, 2021

Impediments come in many forms:  technical, organisational, people related, etc.

Most of the time the SM will try and steer the team to work on removing any impediments themselves, and will only step in to help if the team isnt able to as the SM servers the Team, the Po & the Org.  


01:38 pm November 18, 2021

I would say any and all impediments should be fair game.

It's often the case that a "dumb" impediment that a team-member can be reluctant to even mention (I dunno...."It takes a long time to walk between buildings 2 and 3 now that the secondary gate is no longer in use") turns out to be something that is affecting many members of the team and wasting hours of time in total per week.

Now, whether the team and/or SM are in a position to do anything about such impediments, that's a different question. But the discussion of *what the problems are* should be completely open and general.


01:40 pm November 18, 2021

What impediments Scrum Master can remove other than technical impediments?

The main ones are those which impede people's understanding of Scrum.


02:26 pm November 18, 2021

The impediments that a Scrum Master is best suited to remove depend on the Scrum Master. Someone who has become a Scrum Master from a technical background may be best suited to help the team remove technical impediments. A Scrum Master who has come from a background in organizational design and leadership may be best suited to remove impediments related to the structures and processes in the organization. A Scrum Master from a product management background may be well suited to remove impediments related to product management and ownership.

The most important thing, though, is that a Scrum Master isn't responsible for removing the impediments. The Scrum Master is responsible for helping the team remove the impediments. Perhaps that means removing them, but it could also mean teaching and coaching the team how to identify and remove the impediments on their own. If the team can remove impediments on their own and become less reliant on the Scrum Master to do so, the Scrum Master can turn their attention to other matters or begin to support multiple teams.


04:16 pm November 18, 2021

I agree with everything said above.  A Scrum Master serves their team best when they educate and enable the team members to remove impediments instead of doing it themselves.  This is very much like that team where there is one developer that knows everything about a portion of the code and no one else has any idea what the code does.  If you are the one the removes all impediments, you are creating a silo of skills and knowledge which lessens the ability to self-organize and self-manage. 


12:27 pm November 22, 2021

other than technical impediments?

How SM can even resolve technical impediments and why is there an expectation like that? 


12:29 pm March 4, 2022

Nice! How do I explain the technical impediment to the product owner who thinks that information from the user stories are impediments before the sprint starts?


06:14 pm March 4, 2022

If you are the Scrum Master, why do you feel that you have to explain anything to the Product Owner?  Why can't the Developers explain it to the Product Owner?  After all, they understand the technical impediment better than anyone else.  As it was said above, the Scrum Master doesn't have to remove impediments.  The actual phrase from the Scrum Guide is 

Causing the removal of impediments to the Scrum Team’s progress; 

That can be accomplished by not letting a team ignore the impediment.  


06:38 pm March 4, 2022

How do I explain the technical impediment to the product owner who thinks that information from the user stories are impediments before the sprint starts?

Are the team agreed that this work is Ready for Sprint Planning?


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