1. Anand Kumar Keshavan
Software Product Development
Specialist

2.  Scrum Master stopped being an individual contributor
 Scrum Master assigns and tracks tasks of development
team
Scrum Master is NOT a Project Manger
 Authority over the Scrum process vs. Team members
 Ensuring team members are not blocked vs.. Checking up to see whether they
are screwing up!
Role is:
 to ensure that Scrum meetings are conducted efficiently- within
15 minutes
 to make sure that issues/impediments raised during meeting are
resolved offline.
 Work with Product Owner to ensure readiness of Product Backlog
for next Sprint.
 Ensuring that team members do not over or under commit.

3.  Do not happen at the same time everyday
 Do not happen everyday– weekly meetings or
meetings every alternate day.
 Last more than 15 minutes
 Discussions tend to deviate from the core- what
I was working on yesterday, What I will do
today and any possible impediments. For
example, extensive analysis of the way a
feature should be implemented, arguments on
architectural issues…

4.  Team members do not update their tasks on a
daily basis
 Scrum master updates it for team members!!
 Burn down chart remains “flat” for most part
of the sprint and drops suddenly towards the
end.

5.  Works overtime- 12-14 hours a day or more- especially
during the last week of a sprint.
 Members do not participate in sprint planning
meetings, sprint demos or sprint retrospectives
 As a whole does not complete the items planned in a
sprint on a regular basis. Strong indication that the
Scrum Master or another stakeholder is forcing the
team to take up more than it can chew.
 Team members do not strongly insist on including
refactoring items in sprints- points to increasing
technical debt and/or team fatigue.

6.  Odd sprint lengths- weekly sprints or 4 monthly
sprint--
 Product owner, Executive management attends
daily stand-ups
 Strong indication of scope been changed during sprints
 Undermining the role of the scrum master.
 Product being released after every sprint
 Short sprint planning meetings- indicating that
Product Owner/ Scrum master are allocating
backlog items to team members
 No sprint demo
 Short or irregular retrospective meetings

7.  Executive management uses Sprint data for
appraisals of team members
 Collection and analysis of stupid metrics like tasks
committed vs.. delivered for individuals and team
 Strong aversion to rework by team members-
indicates a culture of “getting it right the first
time”- antithesis to agile principle.
 External monitoring of the Scrum process,
minutes of stand-up meetings, daily status reports,
audits of artifacts, approval trails etc.- strong
indication that an organization is not culturally
ready for Agile adoption.

8. “Scrum is:
 Light weight
 Simple to understand
But difficult to master!!” ( Scrum Guide)
( Sort of like Chess or Programming)