scrum master's role - top 20 challenges
TRANSCRIPT
Scrum Master RoleFocus on challenges.
Top 20 Scrum Masters’ challenges in 2016
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About
This slide deck covers the top 20 challenges faced by Scrum Masters from my own personal experience.
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ME
I’m a scrum master with a background in Quality Assurance and Test Automation with over 15 years industry experience.
My work life started working on Air Traffic Control Systems.
I love my coffee. I am a keen advocate of process improvements and
test automation.
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#1 meet a commitment
Are you failing to meet your commitments? At the sprint review meeting , allow the team to
demonstrate their work. If a commitment does not pass the automated tests or
acceptance criteria then “respectfully” fail it Discuss in the retrospective. Remember that the team is accountable and not the
individual.
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#2 estimations
Are your estimations poor? Discuss how the team came up with the estimation Discuss complexity and effort What have you learned and what new things should be
factored into estimations? Consider not using “hours” as an estimation point.
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#3 focus
Are you working on tickets outside the spriint? During daily stand-ups, identify non related sprint
conversations, requests, work done. Is the customer emailing the developer directly? Is the operations team taking time away from the
scrum team? Record this time and factor this in.
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#4 polished sprint reviews
Is your sprint review hap hazard? The sprint review is where you showcase the sprint commitments
to the scrum team, product owner, customer and wider audience. Does the showcase flow? Practice the demo Can everybody see the screen? Timebox and cross reference the acceptance criteria Run the automation tests perhaps in BDD
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#5 collaboration
Ensure that the QA/Dev and Product Owner are talking Look out for engagement levels in the team Look out for information on wiki and/or tickets
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#6 info in the tickets
Are you experiencing “not enough information in tickets?”
Can the ticket be worked on? Is this a live issue? Can you reproduce in development?
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#7 sprint scope change
Are you experiencing sprint commitment scope changes?
Scope change can de-motivate the team Manage and explain this to the team Introduce systems to allow for teams to multitask Try to deflect to future sprints
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#8 nothing delivered
Nothing delivered at the end of the sprint Something fundamental has gone wrong Perhaps, split up stories further Understand what went wrong
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#9 motivation levels
Look out for signs – keep your finger on the pulse Involve the team Celebrate success/ understand failures Allow the team to be open Be transparent Share and collaborate
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#10 re-prioritize features mid-spirit
Understand the progress during daily stand-ups Re-prioritize a feature and perhaps de-scope to meet a
commitment. Get buy in from Product owner Increase the Agility of the team
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#11 strategy
Share the roadmap and strategy Share the company dream Recommend to do this every 3 months
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#12 backlog grooming
Introduce a process to allow the backlog to mature. Provide improved estimates. Discuss best practices. Help the commitment
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#13 quality ownership
Quality is owned by the team Documentation, deliverables, scripts, artifacts
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#14 time keeping
Time boxing Keep to the times Watch the clock! Keep focus and stay on the topic
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#15 introduce dev improvements Introduce development only improvements tickets to
the sprint Automation frameworks integration into CI Tools development New environment provisioning DevOps
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#16 get the team to care
Success will come from a team that cares Let the team decide Self organizing Discuss importance to the business Get buy-in Dictator or facilitator?
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#17 code transparency
Introduce systems to allow for code transparency Introduce processes to allow for quality code reviews
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#18 test automation
Introduce systems to allow for test automation Think BDD Think Gherkin
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#19 triage process
Enrich tickets with tags and data to allow for better searching.
Production data attached Do you have enough information?
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#20 devops
Think continuous integration Think continuous delivery Think one click automation Use virtual machines Think build pipelines