What happens when teams do not raise impediments during the daily stand up?
Sometime, a typical pattern observed in the scrum teams, specially when the team is new to agile is, that they do not raise impediments in the daily stand ups. While they may have answers to the first two questions (What I did yesterday and what I am planning to do today) but mostly they will keep quiet for the 3rd question – what impediments do I have to complete the work I have? Why does this happen?
- I have impediments but I can solve it myself and hence I don’t need to discuss it in the stand up (Confident approach – sometimes good specially when teams are moving towards being self-organizing)
- I am being perceived as someone who can’t solve simple impediments if I raise it in the daily stand up (Fear of failure, fear of perception on being branded incapable)
- I don’t know if there are any impediments (Ignorant or Needs time – hasn’t either done homework on the user story yet or as of now no impediments but may bump into one later)
How can we encourage the culture of trust and transparency so that the teams can have an open environment to discuss the impediments.
Consider the following for Scenario #1
- What does your demos say? Is the product owner always happy with the demo? What type of comments do you receive from the PO? Observe and note these and tie this to the daily stand up discussions.
- How does your retrospectives go? Do the team speak up and come up with action items? What type of action items? Sometimes, I have observed that the inputs / concerns received during retro could have been addressed had the daily stand up been efficient and transparent.
For Scenario #2:
- Introduce some team bonding games or any other innovative ideas to help teams build trust and become transparent. (Passing the ball while a team member is talking, ringing the bell if the team member’s input is incomplete or too elaborate)
- See if the scrum master is also the people manager for the team. If that is an yes, then you really can’t expect teams to open up in front of their people manager for the fear of appraisal and performance issues.
For Scenario #3:
- Let team member make it clear that they have not gone through the story yet and hence have not yet identified the impediment and will revert once he/she identifies the impediment (Since agile teams sit with each other, the team member can raise this anytime of the day)
Daily stand ups are a great team bonding activity and not just a status report time. Make it fun, make it enjoyable and the teams should see positive results through this ceremony.
