Don’t Waste Your Impediments
In Lean thinking, waste is anything that does not contribute to creating customer value. Eliminating waste is a fundamental principle of lean software development. In Scrum, impediments are anything that reduces the team’s productivity. Removing impediments is the primary responsibility of the ScrumMaster.
When I was recently asked to temporarily step into the ScrumMaster role for my team, I was able to see the power of the impediment process to eliminate waste. During a daily Scrum meeting, the team was engaging in a lengthy discussion about an issue that had arisen. After listening to the team arguing about this for a few minutes, it occurred to me that it wasn’t an issue the team could resolve by itself. When I offered to take the issue as an impediment, the discussion ended. The team knew it was the ScrumMaster’s job to remove this impediment, and no further discussion was needed at that point.
I’d like to offer two observations. Firstly, the absence of an effective impediment process can cause the team to waste time and energy – not only due to lengthy, unproductive discussions, but also due to needless anxiety. Secondly, as a ScrumMaster, it is not sufficient to wait until impediments are raised as impediments. Depending on the culture of the organization, the team, and each individual team member, the definition of the term “impediment” may vary greatly. Team members may feel that it is expected of them to deal with issues internally as much as possible. As a result, real impediments may not be raised as impediments. Impediments happen frequently, and it is a warning sign if the team is not raising any. Waste remains undetected. So, beyond removing impediments that are raised, the ScrumMaster must help ensure that anything that reduces the team’s productivity is in fact raised as an impediment.
Tags: Agile, Impediments, Lean, Scrum, Waste
February 27th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Great article, I think we have to talk more about impediments and the effects of impediments on agile teams and agile team members. Impediments cause the team to lose rhythm.
Stick to the agile principle: Individuals and interactions over the processes and tools.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Great observation Thomas! I believe that the word ‘Impediment’ is such a large and unused word in everyday language (a $2.50 word) that it creates a force field of resistance to raising impediments in the Scrum process.
What do you think would happen if you asked the team to raise concerns or problems – would they be more willing to voice these “impediments” by a different name? (“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” – or in this case as “smelly” as an impediment)
I’ve had to encourage teams in the past to raise issues – there appears to be an initial impediment to raising impediments. This is where a new team needs to be coached that it is not a _bad_ thing to raise an impediment. So much of our US/English cultural is pitted against this practice, that one must encourage it even on experienced teams.
Glad you raised this issue! :^{)}
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