Dear Scrummaster, Stop Hijacking the Stand-Ups for Your Status Updates

Dear ScrumMaster,

In recent stand-ups, it has become apparent that you are dissatisfied with the team’s lack of task updates and communications in general. Are they making progress?  What are the blockers?  No one is saying. You spend time in our stand-ups asking deep questions about technical details. You ask about blockers and work out the details about any blocker, even if it was “there was no time to spend on the task due to production issues.” You openly berate one team member for not moving their task to the in-process status, then do the same thing again with the next team member. This is happening day after day, with no team member taking action on your demands. After 30 minutes in our stand-ups, everyone has left feeling humiliated and emotionally drained, because we know this will happen again tomorrow, which is the next time we will see you.

Can I offer a suggestion? Visit each team member daily with the intent to just ask them, privately, the same questions you’re going to ask in the stand-ups. If we are facing blockers or have realized an effort was under-scoped, you can reassure us that changes can be made. This is being agile, of course. Help us to understand the benefits and value of providing consistent communications and that we have a safe place to provide the truth, whether good or bad. This will give you the opportunity to build the relationship between you and the team, allow for trust to be shared, and nurture the behaviors you expect from us. Do this with every team member, not just those you think “need it”, as I would suggest we all need it. In the end, we will be stronger for it, and you will get the updates you expect.

— Your team

Tag(s): Development , Agile

Joe Dent

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