Search
Close this search box.
Search
Close this search box.
Search
Close this search box.

When Scrum Events Are Burdening

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
WhatsApp
At the beginning of a Scrum implementation y, you usually find two main types of team behaviors. Those who embrace the scrum events (Planning, daily, etc.) and try to better understand them to represent one type. There are many issues and many required adjustments and the team is working on them with the coach. Other teams view Scrum events as a total waste of time. They do them reluctantly and don’t see any value in it. What do you do? We’ve had several such cases and we wanted to better understand what’s going on there. After a deeper look into the dynamics of these teams, we reached some conclusions that let us sleep better at night.

Reason One – Lack Of Understanding

The first obvious reason for a team not performing the scrum events would be that they didn’t get what we’re looking for. It may be they went through training, saw videos, and had pep talks with their managers but still, they didn’t get it. They think this is just another fad and it will go. We say culture follows practice but if you don’t understand where you’re aiming for you just won’t get there. Here is where one on one coaching and a lot of patience is in place.

Reason Two – The Double Star Syndrome

A good clue to what’s going on is the value of the scrum events. The events are there to help the team self-organize: to make sure everyone sees what’s going on so everyone can make decisions. Following the above clue, we understand that another possible explanation for what’s going on in these teams is that the command and control management style in these teams has reached some local optimum, meaning, quite frankly, that it works well. There is usually a talented team leader there, that works very hard, and a bunch of people doing what she says. The people around the leader usually admire her, which reinforces the same dynamics. “How can we decide anything without her in the loop?” The result is that the leader keeps working harder and harder and the other people of the team become smaller and smaller, but in some way, they are all happy about it. The team leader’s ego is well provided for in this situation, and the other team members are feeling blessed for having the opportunity of working with her. We call this the “Double Star Syndrome”: the team is working in a star formation (the leader in the middle) and the team leader becomes a star! In this situation, it is no surprise the entire team is against Scrum events. Who needs planning if the leader does it alone and very well anyway? Who needs the daily meeting if the leader goes around telling everyone what to do? No doubt the retrospective is redundant too – let the leader think about what should we do to improve But what’s wrong with this picture? Why should we change? Should we change? These are good questions (and we’re being quite objective here). We would like to say that in the long run, this management form is unsustainable – meaning, it will not hold for long. However, that would not be true. Many teams are working this way, spawning more managers using the same style. A team member looking admiringly at her manager would like to be in her place. Many people are looking for this kind of power and it is a great motivation for working hard and being promoted. This leads us to the ultimate reason, the mother of all reasons for the change:

The Ultimate Reason for Hating The Scrum Events – Everything’s Fine!

To make a change you need to have a compelling reason. If everything’s fine, don’t change anything. Yet, being in this situation, asking ourselves these questions, suggests something started a change process. It may be that the real reasons for change are hidden and you need to discover them. As a manager, as a coach, you must find the reason for the change. Many times we just get into the “implement the ceremonies” frenzy and forget why are we doing it for. That’s not good. We need to remind ourselves again and again why are we doing the change. The bottom line is that when people see the scrum roles as burdening, the solution would not be to enforce them. The solution would be to understand why are they seen this way. Does the team understand where we’re going? Is there something basic about how the team operates that is blocking the agile implementation? Is there really a reason to change?
Subscribe for Email Updates:

Categories:

Tags:

Accelerate Value Delivery At Scale
Effective Agile Retrospectives
Story Slicing
RSA
Product Management
Legacy Enterprise
Test Driven Development
Agile Marketing
Product Ownership
Agile Contracts Best Practices
AgileSparks
Certification
ATDD vs. BDD
A Kanban System for Software Engineering
LeSS
Nexus Integration Team
Advanced Roadmaps
Scrum.org
Scrum Guide
Self-organization
Implementing SAFe
Webinar
RTE
System Archetypes
Coaching Agile Teams
Software Development
Kanban
Agile and DevOps Journey
Games and Exercises
IT Operations
Agile in the Enterprise
Tips
Tools
Quality Assurance
Agile Release Planning
Video
Agile Product Ownership
Sprint Iteration
SAFe DevOps
Scrum With Kanban
Nexus
ART Success
Continuous Deployment
Legacy Code
Spotify
Agile Testing Practices
Elastic Leadership
SAFe Release Planning
ScrumMaster Tales
Jira admin
Agile Israel
Presentation
Agile Assembly Architecture
Releases Using Lean
GanttBan
TDD
Introduction to ATDD
Agile
Process Improvement
Business Agility
Acceptance Test-Driven Development
SAFe
NIT
Scrum and XP
Development Value Streams
PI Planning
Daily Scrum
User stories
Kanban Basics
What Is Kanban
Kaizen
Entrepreneurial Operating System®
RTE Role
Value Streams
Agile Mindset
Risk Management in Kanban
Managing Risk on Agile Projects
Scrum Master
Engineering Practices
Agility
Agile Techniques
Operational Value Stream
Achieve Business Agility
Jira Cloud
Scrum Values
Principles of Lean-Agile Leadership
EOS®
agileisrael
Agile Development
Risk-aware Product Development
lean agile change management
Large Scale Scrum
Scrum Master Role
Professional Scrum with Kanban
Continuous Planning
Hybrid Work
POPM
Lean and Agile Techniques
QA
Agile Outsourcing
Agile Project Management
Limiting Work in Progress
Scrum Primer
Lean Budgeting
Applying Agile Methodology
Agile Games
Atlassian
Continuous Integration
Agile Project
Systems Thinking
Kaizen Workshop
ARTs
Agile Basics
Lean Agile Management
ALM Tools
Portfolio for Jira
Program Increment
Rapid RTC
Agile for Embedded Systems
Implementation of Lean and Agile
Software Development Estimation
Lean Agile
Agile Release Management
speed @ scale
DevOps
Agile Risk Management
The Kanban Method
System Integration Environments
Agile Program
Scaled Agile Framework
Introduction to Test Driven Development
Lean Agile Leadership
Code
An Appreciative Retrospective
System Team
Covid19
Lean-Agile Software Development
Agile Product Development
Nexus vs SAFe
Enterprise DevOps
Nexus and SAFe
Slides
Managing Projects
chatgpt
Continuous Delivery
Lean Software Development
predictability
Agile Delivery
Change Management
Frameworks
WIP
Lean Agile Organization
Agile Community
Jira Plans
BDD
Continuous Improvement
Lean Startup
LAB
Perfection Game
Kanban Game
Professional Scrum Master
Atlaassian
Agile Exercises
Kanban Kickstart Example
Artificial Intelligence
ROI
Nexus and Kanban
The Agile Coach
Scrum
Lean Risk Management
Agile Israel Events
Manage Budget Creation
SA
Pomodoro Technique
SPC
speed at scale
Amdocs
Iterative Incremental Development
Built-In Quality
Lean and Agile Principles and Practices
Lean Agile Basics
Lean-Agile Budgeting
LPM
Agile Games and Exercises
Release Train Engineer
Sprint Planning
Professional Scrum Product Owner
AI Artificial Intelligence
ATDD
Reading List
AI
PI Objectives
Certified SAFe
Kanban 101
Jira
Sprint Retrospectives
Risk Management on Agile Projects
Agile India
AgileSparks
Logo
Enable registration in settings - general

Contact Us

Request for additional information and prices

AgileSparks Newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter, and stay updated on the latest Agile news and events

This website uses Cookies to provide a better experience
Shopping cart