How to handle if developers are not having enough technical experience.
Hi all, there is a new team assigned to me for more than a month. 2 of the developers with 2+ and 3+ of experience are not capable enough to understand and complete the work. Rather asking another experienced person for doubts and making her to complete their work. How can i handle this situation as a scrum master?
Is that other experienced person a Developer on the same team? They are expected to collaborate on achieving their jointly agreed Sprint Goal by producing a Done increment of work.
What you are witnessing might conceivably be part of their Sprint plan for knowledge sharing. Remember that Developers are not individually accountable for meeting their commitments, but are collectively accountable.
If the developers don't finish the items, are they over estimating every time, or does somebody else decide for the team what to do? Let the team pull from the backlog in priority order and keep the goals realistic.
Experience need to be built. Experience will not resolve itself in a few months You might need to take a step back
I am a strong believer in Pair Programming. First team the less experienced people with the experienced person, one at a time. That is just to get things going, because the power dynamic will not be ideal. Move towards pairing the less experienced together. Pair programing works best with new people that do not know the system. ( My opinion.)
Introduce constructive Code Reviews. :Help developers learn from each othe. Workshops and Training, constructive Retrospectives, occasional Hackathons and Side Projects:, Technology Documentation and Knowledge Sharing, can all help. In general create open communication, collaboration and sharing environment.
In my experience it is often the senior devs holding back information and do not want to share, possible feeling they need to finish work themselves. Set time aside for the senior dev to share knowledge with the team. Not doing their work, but help the team on obstacles, get the other devs going when they are stuck.
I agree with Pierre. I've seen Devs come up to speed in a really constructive and sustainable way by reducing commitments and allowing time for Pair Programming. As a Scrum Master you may need to explain a dip in perceived productivity to management, but remember this is an investment of time for long-term gain.
After a period of time if the Devs are still not at level (in your opinion), discuss with them and the experienced Dev and make adjustments to the arrangement.