Tales of the Bizarro Scrum – Are You Sure It’s Going to Take this Long?

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Scrum Master: “Are you sure it’s going to take this long? The product owner wants it done in the next Sprint and I already told her it won’t be a problem.”

I have 3 issues with this kind of statement. First, it seems that the Scrum Master is acting as the intermediary between the Product Owner and the Developers. Second, the Scrum Master is making commitments on behalf of the Developers. Third, the Scrum Master is pressuring the Developers on their estimates.

As a Scrum Master, your role is to get the Product Owner to communicate and collaborate directly with the Developers and not be the go-between. So as a Scrum Master, you should not be relaying the Product Owner’s needs to the team or making promises on behalf of the Developers to the Product Owner. Instead, you need to ensure that the Developers hear directly from the Product Owner and understand the needs, importance, and business case of a user story. Then have the Developers and Product Owner negotiate and collaborate to determine what can be accomplished within the timebox and based on any upcoming deadlines. No one can pressure the Developers on the estimates. The team is empowered to determine how long something takes and how much of it they can take on in each Sprint. Developers can negotiate the scope of a feature or requirement with the Product Owner to get the most valuable part out sooner and then iterate and increment to get other aspects delivered later.

Remember the Agile values and principles. In particular, “Customer collaboration over Contract Negotiation”, and “Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.”