Tuesday, August 21, 2012

ScrumMasters and impediments

One of the roles of the ScrumMaster is to help the team resolve impediments. i.e. things that are stopping the team or a team member from making forward progress with their story or stories. The keyword above is help. Do not necessarily do it for them. If a team member can resolve an issue, let them. Sure a SM can help have the difficult conversation or chase some hardware that's required, but we should understand why they can't resolve it by themselves. Perhaps they shy away from conflict and they are to scared to have the difficult conversation. Perhaps the hardware requisition is distracting them from coding. After understanding why the impediment cannot be resolved by the team, work with them to resolve it together. Build up their confidence to do so. The SM is the teams coach and should be helping them self-organize. By resolving all impediments you're increasing the teams reliance on you and decreasing their ability to self-organize.

How do you see the role of the ScrumMaster for removing impediments?