3 Common Complaints on Scrum Teams
From the Voices on Project Management Blog
by Cameron McGaughy,
Lynda Bourne, Kevin Korterud, Conrado Morlan, Peter Tarhanidis, Mario Trentim, Jen Skrabak, David Wakeman, Wanda Curlee, Christian Bisson, Ramiro Rodrigues, Soma Bhattacharya, Emily Luijbregts, Sree Rao, Yasmina Khelifi, Marat Oyvetsky, Lenka Pincot, Jorge Martin Valdes Garciatorres, cyndee miller
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Date
By Soma Bhattacharya
In discussions I’ve heard within Scrum teams over the years, three common concerns often come up:
1. “We need longer sprints.”
2. “We always have spillovers and can’t seem to fix them.”
3. “Ad hoc tasks always mess up sprint planning.”
I think this often originates from general discomfort people have when problems surface; but for me,
dealing with things like this is exactly what agile is all about. So, here’s an alternative way to think
about these three problems:
1. Sprint durations: It’s common knowledge that with the change of a sprint duration, the team
capacity changes as well. So, when teams complain about needing longer sprints to finish the
work, it’s clearly due to a lack of planning (and having no time to cover up the lack of it). So
instead of bringing up what needs to be ready during planning, teams will usually take it all on
because someone has told them to. This can be easily resolved by the team simply looking at
its velocity trend and recognizing how much work can be taken and delivered.
2. Spillovers: These are not the villain here. What matters most is discovering why the
spillovers are happening. Sometimes when ad hoc works comes in, instead of going for a
tradeoff (because capacity is limited), teams just take it all on and then end up with a
spillover. Oftentimes, waiting for a dependency with other teams or external partners messes
things up. Teams refrain from speaking even if they see risks because everyone is waiting for
someone else to raise the flag. This is where team empowerment and decision making can
be improved upon.
3. Unplanned work: Sprint reviews can be a good platform to talk about unplanned work
seeping in. The best way to bring that up can be to see what the percentage of unplanned
work is within a team’s capacity. A simple way to track this is by creating a user story and
keep adding to its unplanned work, along with the time spent. So, during a sprint review, the
spillovers or tradeoffs are easy to talk about—and the “blame” (if any) doesn’t always fall on
the team. Everyone gets the needed clarity.
Being agile is very different from just being part of standups. The main issue is that leadership often
does not sponsor the agile teams—and in the process there’s more confusion. The team is forced to
attend agile ceremonies, but sees no benefits because it is still forced to work on things that weren’t in
the plan. Bringing up blockers (and how much time is spent on them) or costs will allow a simple
decision to be made: Do you want to continue being agile? And if “yes,” how much decision making is
the team empowered to make?
What common issues have you encountered on your Scrum teams, and how have you dealt with
them?
Posted
by
Soma Bhattacharya
on: June 29, 2022 11:56 PM |
Permalink
Comments (4)
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Stéphane Parent
Self Employed / Semi-retired| Leader Maker
Prince Edward Island, Canada
One of the problem I've found is when the Scrum team wants to keep attendance to the sprint review to a limited, internal audience. They're afraid to show it to clients, customers and sponsors.
Luis Branco
CEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, Ldª
Carcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Dear Soma:
The topic that you brought to our reflection and debate was very interesting.
Thanks for sharing and for the tips
What is the sprint for when these situations occur?
sprints needs to be productive and focus on the goal, on daily basis it shouldn't take more than 30 min.
Shanos Kunhahamu
Product Manager, Mobile Wallet| First Abu Dhabi Bank
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Thank you for sharing your experience.
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