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Several issues and how should I solve it as scrum master

Last post 12:35 pm February 18, 2017 by Nicolas Casel
5 replies
Justin Müller
03:38 am February 9, 2017

Hi all

I need Your advice.
I'm a scrum master in a team with 7 developers since 6 months.
I had a lot of time in holidays to think about what I should do, because we have several issues.
We have 3 new developers, they are fully self organized and really good programers. We have 4 other teammembers, since 10 year in the team and just worked in waterfall since ever. And they are unfortunatelly not good in programming and not self organized.
Thats for the background, now the issues and my ideas to solve it:

Issue: The old teammembers have troubles to make estimations, when they don't get explicit advice how to do it technicaly
Idea: at the grooming we start to create subtasks together, so they see what the solution could be and how many effort it needs

Issue: the userstorys are too big or not well explained
Idea: backloggrooming with PO and requirement engineer 1 day before estimation meeting

Issue: almost all storys are in progress till the last day of sprint
Idea: use the subtasks and bring them to done, so the burndown chart will be better

Issue: a lot of storys end up by wont fix
Idea: should be better with subtasks and the team should ser at the sprint planning if the sprint is full

Issue: a lot of quality issues
Idea: start pair programming, mix old and new members together

Open issue: how can I learn them to be self organized? Micro management is not our target.
How can I setup this ideas like start pairprogramming? The old teammembers have a lot of problems with changes and the team should be selforganized. So I can or should not give them the order to pairprograming. If I suggest them to decide by themself, nothing will change because its 4:3

Thanks for any critical input or advice

Regards

Ian Mitchell
09:48 pm February 9, 2017

Are the team aware of these issues, and if so, have they discussed them in a Sprint Retrospective?

Fredrik Vestin
11:40 am February 10, 2017

Justin: Be careful in trying to solve the teams problems for them. People will usually not self-organize just because you tell them to. They need help/coaching from you. Also, they may feel very differently about these issues than you do. Try to ask questions to encourage a discussion about these issues and offer advice but let the team decide if they want to try it or not (pair programming etc.) What impact does the quality issues have and what can be done about it? By letting the team discuss this and come up with ideas for resolution themselves, chances of changes sticking is higher than if you dictate how they should change.

Pankaj Chitriv
01:35 pm February 10, 2017

..Additionally by way of Daily Scrum, they should be able to state what have they done yesterday, whats the plan for today and are there any blockers. It cannot be any simpler than this to get this self organize. If they are unable to state blockers in order to deliver the story, its a bigger issue really which Agile can't solve.

Ganesh Raja Munuswamy
10:26 pm February 17, 2017

Just my thought

Issue: the userstorys are too big or not well explained 

If the stories are too big and not explained, why is it in the sprint? you should have identified this issue in sprint planning before moving to sprint.

Issue: almost all storys are in progress till the last day of sprint 

This cannot happen. you have daily scrum for inspection. once you see the team is not going todwards sprint goal, you should have worked with PO and dev team early during the sprint rather waiting till the close of the sprint.

For those who are in waterfall for ten years, its SM responsibility to coach them agile and figure outhow to get into scrum mode. By good coaching and continuous feedback, they will soon practice scrum as you are.

and by coaching them the agile values and making them responsible for the sprint activies will make them self-organized.

Nicolas Casel
12:35 pm February 18, 2017

Hi Justin,

Your issues are very clear explained, it helps providing you with ideas and I hope solutions.

"Issue: the userstorys are not well explained "



=> When the Sprint Planning and Retro are done, and just before starting the next sprint, does every Dev Team member:

- create sub-tasks for her/his User Stories

- assign estimation (2 days ma) for each of these sub-tasks

?



"Issue: the userstorys are not well explained "



=> During the Sprint planning, Dev Team members have to say to the PO: "I understand perfectly this story" or "I do not understand, could you bring more details?"

 

"Issue: a lot of quality issues "

Quality related to what?

1) coding?

=> Do you practice "Code review"? 



2) delivered items?

=> Does the PO approve what has been delivered on acceptance environment?

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