Agile Development Blog

The Agile Blog is proud to present the first post from our newest contributor, Agile Coach Ken Clyne

If a team member doesn't take accountability, things can get messy

With a four year old and a six year old, familiar sayings around our house are “pick up your toys,” “pick up your clothes,” “brush your teeth,” “get dressed.” Of course, as parents we could get our short-term objectives met much faster if we just did these tasks ourselves… but we don’t.

We understand the importance of our children developing their own awareness of basic hygiene, cleanliness and developing their own skills that will one day help them become independent.

Giora Morein takes somewhat the opposite view in a recent Agile Tip of the Month article. He proposes that ScrumMasters (or, in my extreme analogy, the “parents”) should track hours remaining on a sprint on behalf of the team members (the “kids”). Giora says:

“Team members are focused on completing tasks and delivering value. The time-tracking is a nuisance and a distraction for these motivated folks. To the ScrumMaster and the team, however, it is extremely important. As such, the ScrumMaster should take on the responsibility of updating burndown data.“

While I don’t question Giora’s good intentions and there is no doubt this approach is expeditious, I believe it is worth striving to have the team update their own hours remaining. There are many benefits to being a member of a self-organizing, self-managing team, but with those benefits also comes responsibility and accountability.

Here are some dangers I see in a team not taking responsibility for their hours:

• They become less accountable for the number they provide

• They don’t understand the mechanisms of the self-managing, self-organizing team

• They become dependent on the ScrumMaster

• The ScrumMaster becomes frustrated and disillusioned

• The ScrumMaster morphs from a leadership role to a management role

• The team starts to revert to form

How does your team update its remaining hours? Have you tried one method that worked better than another?