SCRUM - non cooperative team members

Question

What do you do if members of your team are not cooperative during scrum meetings? They either provide a very high level definition of what they are currently working on, ("working on feature x"), or go into extremely irrelevant details, in spite of being well educated in SCRUM methodology. This causes the scrum meeting to be ineffective and boring.

As a scrum master, what are your techniques to getting the best out of people during the meeting?

Edited to add:

What technique do you use to stop someone who is talking too much, without being offensive?

What technique do you use to encourage someone to provide a more detailed answer?

How do you react when you find yourself being the only one who listens, while other team members just sit there and maybe even fall asleep?

Answer 1

Ask for the specific details you need. People won't be aware of stuff you are interested in.

Also try to put forth some guidelines for better and effective presentation before the meeting.

Answer 2

If time management is your problem. Get a timer and have someone buzz when you run out of time. Make sure tasks are broken down to an adequate level of granularity - any task should be anywhere between 4 hours to 2 days.. max 3 days. Anything above that break it down further before people signup to do it.

I think the three questions are:

• What did you do yesterday?
• What are you going to do today?
• What obstacles do you see in your path?

Granular tasks (post iteration planning) should cater to bullets 1 and 2. The third actually depends on environmental conditions. The timer should over time subsconsciously jolt the members into thinking about their problems and framing short sentences. Focus on concrete obstacles instead of explaining why or preconditions or whatever. If you are talking to a single person for over 5 mins about something that only is of relevance to both of you.. stop, make a note (have a talk later at their desk) and move on.

Update: Also make sure everyone understands that 'rehearsing' before the Scrum meeting would save everyone's time. Think about what you would like to convey instead of just walking into the stand-up.

Answer 3

They should be saying what they achieved not what they worked on, and if they achieved nothing then what stopped them achieving.

The questions that are asked could be phrased differently

1. What have I completed since thelast meeting?
2. What will I complete before the next meeting?
3. What is in my way (impediments)?

also it is important that the meeting is not the team reporting to the scrum master, but the team keeping in check with each other. If people are talking straight at you the scrum master there are techniques to move the focus. Make sure you don't look at the speaker, or even move back so the sight line changes and they are forced to look at team mates as they talk. Do it subtle though :)

EDIT:

I cribbed that from http://www.implementingscrum.com/2007/04/02/work-naked/

Answer 4

Talk to them outside the scrum meeting and tell them how others may perceive their way of presenting what they are currently working on. I assume they are not deliberately non cooperative, but just not accustomed to the exact level of detail scrum meetings should have.

You may also ask them how much information they expect from others during the meeting.

Answer 5

By "scrum meeting", are you referring to the daily "stand up" meeting? If so, I believe those are usually timeboxed at about 15-20 minutes. So divide that time equally among everyone, and once someone uses up all their time, they can't talk. It might be harsh, but I believe that's how it's supposed to go down.

Answer 6

How do you react when you find yourself being the only one who listenes, while other team members just sit there and maybe even fall asleep?

Hmm, are you actually having stand-up meetings? It may sound hokey, but aside from making it harder for people to fall asleep, it also helps foster the feeling of a quick huddle to rather than a leisurelymeeting.

Answer 7

One thing that I have seen lead to an improvement is the use of a "talking stick" (we actually use a soft ball). It provides some additional focus on who is currently speaking, and makes the transition to another person more obvious.

Answer 8

How do you react when you find yourself being the only one who listenes, while other team members just sit there and maybe even fall asleep?

If I have already heard what the others have said I would ask a question of someone who is not paying attention about how it this might affect what they are working on. Very school teacher like, however it is enough so that they respond and engage with the meeting again.

I also agree with Kief

Answer 9

The Scrum is a standup meeting, and the concept of a talking stick is an excellent point.

The key here is not that you have one or a few uncooperative team members, but is IMO, a more fundamental problem: the scrum team is supposed to be self managed, and the scrum meeting is to keep the team informed. If the other team members are not asking for clarifications and calling out the uncooperative members, then a re-education on scrum needs to happen.

Remember, the scrum master is not being reported to, s/he is just the person who removes blockages to the process. This does include facilitating the scrum meeting, but the team does have a responsibility to understand and demand clarification independent of the scrum master.

Answer 10

Scrum is a bottom up process, so in principle every team member should support the process.

How is the team put together? By organizational tradition or because of a common goal?

Not everybody buy into the Scrum idea, and we should respect that. Perhaps the best for all is that these members are not part of the Scrum team?

Answer 11

Some people just don't understand what is required. You can try to guide the conversation by using some key phrases.

If someone is giving too much detail then you can try to cut them off with a "What else". This will hint that they are done on that point. Or you can try the "OK, can we discuss that offline" type direction.

For people who don't buy into it, ask them questions about what they did and what they are going to do.

Answer 12

First of all... make sure folks are standing up... and not even leaning on the wall or a desk.

At a high level, I would say that, whenever you face issues on the team, the best response is to ask the team for solutions. However, here are some of the techniques I've used for the issues you're facing.

Talks too much

• have him/her stand on one leg
• have him/her hold the scrum "speaking" token in an outstretched hand while they speak.
• Add a flip chart to the scrum to list tabled issues... when someone gets longwinded on a topic that is not scrum-meeting-worthy, interrupt and say "Hey - great point. I'm not sure everyone needs to discuss this, how 'bout if we park this for a follow-up discussion?" A key to making this successful is to actually follow-up afterwards and get the side conversation scheduled. Alternatively, the speaker may just say "Not necessary... I'll be working with Joe this afternoon on this" or something like that, which accomplishes the goal of reducing the windedness without the need to schedule the follow-up.

Need more detail. Is this for the scrum master's benefit or the team's?

• wait until afterwards to ask the individual more detailed questions. If you think the team also needs to know them, coach the team member by conveying (in your after-scrum questioning) that "this is the sort of thing that I think Joe Smith would be helped in hearing from you, what do you think?"

Team doesn't listen.

• Ask them on an individual basis. "Sally, I noticed that you don't seem to be getting much out of the Scrum. How can we adjust it to make it valuable for you?".
• Post questions to others during the scrum. Like if Sally says "I integrated with Bob's code yesterday", ask Bob "how'd that go?" (I'd use this sparingly... to guard against scrums taking too long).
• I've found that sometimes team members tend towards old habits by looking at the scrum master or project manager when they speak. When this happens alot, I alter my gaze to look away, which almost forces the speaker to gain eye contact with other members of the team, which may help the other members of the team to pay attention.

Answer 13

for your team to participate they have to see value in it, not just do it because you told them to.

Answer 14

For the sake of arguement, let's say someone really has something they need to tell the team and it is going to take some time. Do you have an appropriate place, time or method (email, other type of meeting, lunch time) to do this? Just interupt the person and let them know the stand up meeting isn't the place.

Also, what problems during development does this create? If there is an error because of lack of communication, people need to be confronted on why they don't mention these things during the standup.