A surprising post from Mike Cohn.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/three-mistakes-scrum-masters-make-how-co…
Particularly these points:
On the Daily Scrum; "I do think the Scrum Master should participate in the daily scrum and should give an update. "
On the 6 x 2 + 1 cycle: "Introducing a cycle like this actually benefits more than just the team. The product owner now has a week without any “distractions” from the team. "
Assuming, that the SM is not part of the Dev Team, I'm not sure why he thinks he one, is allowed to participate, and two, should give an update. I also like the idea of 'slack' and working at a 'sustainable pace' but don't think that adding a week long 'fake sprint' is the answer... especially if it is because the PO now has no distractions.
First of all, bear in mind that Mike is more of the pragmatic side of things when it comes to implementing Scrum. He's repeatedly stated that he wants to help people succeed with agile (which is also one of his book titles) - and in his view that doesn't always mean "do Scrum by the book". Imo that's a perfectly valid concept.
That being said: As a ScrumMaster I have given updates in the Daily Scrum. The idea isn't all that absurd at first. All Development Team members are present, so giving an update about your progress on the team's impediments seems like a good idea. And maybe for some teams it is. I'm thinking of distributed teams which may be difficult to synchronise. However, when you start to look at what the Daily Scrum is supposed to achieve, you quickly recognise that the ScrumMaster giving an update adds no value whatsoever and, even worse, may actually worsen the problem of Daily Scrum being viewed as a status meeting. When our team began exploring why our Daily Scrums weren't effective, the team asked me to stop giving an update and that I did. Daily Scrums have been better since then (though not only because I stopped talking).
As for the "fake Sprint" thing, I'm sceptical of that myself. However, I have encountered issues where shortening the sprint length for one sprint seemed to be a sensible option. For example, if there is one week left before Christmas and the company is closed for two weeks after Christmas, there's really no use in planning a two-week sprint.
Lastly, if you haven't already done so, I'd recommend sharing your thoughts with Mike. He really does try to answer every comment and e-mail he receives and these answers can be very insightful.
Thanks, Julian! Good response. I'll drop him a note.