Answers to Divya: What does a scrum master do when they are not able to manage timelines?

Scrum is all about managing time, I understand your question as what does a scrum master do when they are not able to do scrum.

The magic triangle is an accurate representation on what you are facing in any kind of work: time, resources and scope. The trick of scrum is to fix time.

Saying that scrum is a framework should be understood that scrum is a scaffolding and not a chocolate box where you are picking only the ones you like. Scrum is all or nothing and time is the constraint, an intangible one. I know that some organizations are cherry picking like in a software framework and that’s wrong.

The idea of becoming overtime predictable is core to any agile related approaches. Predictability is due to the work in a business context. In research, predictability is less important and the scrum dynamic is barely different with a higher ratio of complexity dynamic (communication and working interaction).

A Product Owner who wants to become predictable needs to have a stable sprint length (time) to ensure an appropriate velocity (number of done items in a sprint). In the case, if your time is variable, the measured velocity won’t be accurate. You can have an emerging trend over a certain period of time: you need more time to get more of data to translate into average sprint length and average velocity.

You will find variable time, variable resources (non dedicated people) in offshore teams. There, people are in a production line with a scrum shine, but it has nothing to do with scrum nor with agile, and it is definitely not effective.

Time is Scrum Master’s power. Working timeline is your responsability and there is not negotiable: you define it collectivelly from quarter to quarter and then never changing it. The timing in Scrum is a routine ensuring that all stakeholders are able to manage their time outside that routine. If somebody from the team or from the stakeholders can’t respect that timeline, then find a replacement.

On the other hand, not being able to manage timelines can be understood as not being able to deliver on timeline.

In that case, ask you these questions:

• do you have a retrospective?
• have you raised that problem in the retrospective?
• what kind of action have been taken?
• in the Sprint planning session, is the team figuring out how to develop the solution or is the team accepting work from the PO? Is that work S.M.A.R.T.?
• are you using a sprint burndown chart and are reviewing it daily with the team at the daily scrum?
• do you have a clear Definition of Done?
• is your PO working in the team or is he/she only the voice-of or the customer?
• do you have members or do you have a team?

Delivery issues are highlighted at least during a daily scrum and decisions have to be taken so rapidly you can see how good or mostly bad your development is progressing. At the middle of the sprint time, please ensure that work isn’t stocked in areas such testing, integration or acceptance and try to ensure completion of these tasks before carrying on.