The Team Isn’t Making Progress

When watching a development team conduct a daily scrum, you’ll often notice tasks that are blocked—ones where the team isn’t making any progress. Sometimes it seems like these tasks are glued to the team board: they just won’t move. Even worse, the result of the daily scrum probably won’t address the blocked tasks.

A development team is accountable for their progress, and an important part of that is pointing out and tackling blockers and impediments as a team as soon as possible. When tasks and stories appear stuck and no one is talking, it’s time to get concerned about why the team isn’t speaking up. If team members simply aren’t aware that they can speak up, remind them that the whole point of the daily scrum is for them to discuss any impediments and, as a team, make a plan to overcome them.

Another possibility is that the team has so much work in progress that they simply haven’t noticed the stuck task. To make this issue more visible, consider tracking work item aging: the amount of time that has elapsed since the team started on a work item. It’s easy! At the end of each day, simply take a marker and put a dot on every in-progress card. If the card doesn’t move to a new status on the board, add another dot the next day. During the daily scrum, ask the development team to focus on the oldest cards (those with the most dots). Use this data to start a conversation with the development team about how to get the task moving again. Even better, use this as an opportunity to talk about the value of limiting the amount of work in progress. For example, when the next daily scrum is over and the team is still around the team board, ask them how their plan for the day addresses the stuck PBIs. This gentle nudge could be enough to make the point that we, as a team, are accountable for achieving the sprint goal and that we’re committed to helping each other when needed.

Keep in mind that a team member (or members) may not feel comfortable speaking up in the daily scrum. When a task or story is stuck and the person doing the work isn’t asking for help, you can bet that the team isn’t living the Scrum values. Try discussing the Scrum values with your team. Ask them which values are missing when team members stop offering and asking for help. Use this list of values to start the conversation:

• Commitment: The members of the development team are committed to following the rules of Scrum, and to helping one another deliver a high-quality increment of valuable software.

• Focus: The sprint goal creates focus for the development team. It’s a guidepost that the team can use to make rapid decisions. For example, the team may have to decide whether to accept additional work during the sprint. If the new work puts the sprint goal in jeopardy, the answer is a clear no.

• Courage: It takes courage to raise an impediment to the team, to ask for help with a story that has you stumped, or to raise a concern about the direction the team is going. Development team members must show courage and act transparently for the betterment of the team, especially when they realize that they’re wrong and need to pivot quickly to realign to the sprint goal.

• Openness: The team members need to be open with one another to keep their progress toward the sprint goal transparent. Otherwise, the team won’t be able to inspect and adapt. Openness allows team members to both offer and ask for help. Openness also helps us listen to all voices and opinions so that the team has ownership of its decisions.

• Respect: The daily scrum is intense. All the work is out in the open so the team can inspect and adapt. Team members may need to ask for help or have differing opinions. Without respect for each other and for everyone’s abilities, empiricism and self-organization just aren’t possible.

Having honest conversations about the Scrum values and how the team may not be embodying them can be tough. Asking for help and offering help at the risk of insulting someone can feel uncomfortable. But if you’re living the Scrum values, these things will become easier over time.