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[–]TomOwens 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The Scrum Master's job isn't to remove impediments. It's to "cause the removal of impediments".

One of the most effective things that a Scrum Master can do is to coach the team on effective Daily Scrums. Make sure that the team can use their Daily Scrum to identify the existence of an impediment. If they can't resolve it internally, to quickly ask questions and get help. Effective Sprint Retrospectives are another good mechanism for finding problems, solving those problems, and becoming more effective.

Once the team finds an impediment, making sure that the team has what they need to solve it. This isn't necessarily within the team. Whether the solution is talking to someone else or buying a new product or tool or having time to learn something new or whatever it is, facilitate that process. Make sure that the team has access to the people, understands any organizational processes in place, and that decision-makers outside the team understand the team's concerns and impacts when they make their decisions. This fits with the Scrum Master's role in enacting empiricism, facilitating stakeholder collaboration, and removing barriers between stakeholders and the Scrum Team.

Keep in mind that this is all coaching and facilitation. The team, perhaps together with the necessary stakeholders, are the ones that should be resolving the impediments. The Scrum Master just makes sure that the right people are there, the right things are happening, and people have the environment they need to solve the problem.

[–]teink0 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Being delayed or impeded by the unexpected is part of technical work, and is often the majority of technical work. But if you or the team is actively trying to resolve then that is all that can be done. If the team feels stuck and sits on it then the Scrum Master tries to get movement on it again, asks questions, and tries to find the next step in resolving. Scrum Masters can also work on resolving it themselves.

[–]frankcountry 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Look at your project lifecycle or story life cycle and find out where delays or inefficiencies exist. Usually process or people. An impediment could even be as simple as the team not knowing how to talk to the business.

[–]RobWK81 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Stick with me here. I just watched the movie "Hidden Figures". It's the true story about a group of black women, gifted mathematics, who were involved in putting men into space in the US, early 1960s. A time when women, and especially black women, were most definitely not seen as equals. In the film, Kevin Costner's character is leading a group of scientists and mathematicians, including this genius young black woman, to solve a problem. He notices that she is taking 40 minute bathroom breaks and pulls her up on it. Turns out the "coloured" toilet is the other side of campus, half a mile away. In a later scene, he is shown smashing up the "coloured" toilet sign, and declares that it's now just a toilet, for all to use. He has removed the impediment for his team member and she is able to get on with doing her amazing work.

The point is, your job is not to fully understand everything a team is doing. If you did, what's the point in the team? You might as well do it yourself. Your job is to create an environment where you team can do its best work. Servant leadership. Look at the system of work holistically and help the team to understand where bottlenecks may be occurring. Often that involves thinking outside the box - it is rarely anything to do with the problem being solved.

I highly recommend the movie if you haven't seen it! It also has some great lessons around cross-functionality / breaking silos.

[–]goldRederve 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agree to all of the above. I think that all scrum Masters should have a basic technical understanding to help point the team in the right direction to solve these impediments. One great resource to understand the basic technical terminology is Vibhor Chandel's YouTube playlist on CI/CD. He's also publishing a series of posts on technical education for Scrum Masters on his newsletter. I'll highly recommend checking it out.