One of the things we’ve been tracking is Pass or Fail for a Sprint All the work you set out to do was done? Pass. You missed a Story? Fail. There’s no associated reward or punishment but the teams get pretty serious about it.
A Sprint ended Friday and the Team was patting themselves on the back for their Pass even though at 7:30 PM the Team was still scrammbling to wrap up 3 Tasks. One of the engineers had to cancel dinner plans and was working alone at the office feeling solely responsible for the team’s success.
So now I get be the mean ScrumMaster and give them a big ol’ Fail and explain that the planning and estimates should not require last minute heroics and all-nighters.
I’m adding to my ScrumMaster checklist: Put a clear deadline in Exchange noting the date and hour of the Pass/Fail deadline. I’m a chump for not doing that automatically.