One Developer has taken no work off the Sprint Backlog for two Sprints and misses most Daily Scrums. When the Scrum Master raises it, the other Developers say that they are a self-managing team and that nobody there manages anybody. What does Scrum actually expect?
Professional Scrum Master I, objective 2. Developing people and teams hard
Machine-checked — no person has signed for it. This question was read against the source cited below by an automated pass, which found no contradiction. That is a weaker claim than it sounds: the same kind of process wrote the question, so it can confirm its own mistake.
Treat it as a good draft rather than as settled fact, and read the source below before you rely on it. It is not used in mock exams here — only questions a person has signed for are.
The options
Not correct The Scrum Master should raise it with the Developer's line manager, since only management can address performance
Wrong, and it is what most organisations reach for first. Escalating hands the team's own accountability to someone outside it and teaches the team that difficult conversations are somebody else's job.
Not correct The Product Owner should decide whether to keep the Developer on the team, as they own the value being lost
Wrong. The Product Owner has no authority over team membership, and the value argument does not create one.
Correct The Developers are accountable for holding each other accountable as professionals, so this conversation is theirs to have
Correct. The Guide lists this among the things Developers are always accountable for, which is exactly why self-management cannot mean the absence of accountability.
Not correct Nothing — self-management means each Developer chooses their own level of involvement
Wrong, and it is the misconception the item is built on. Self-management distributes authority over the work; it does not dissolve the commitment to a shared Sprint Goal or the four things Developers are always accountable for.
Why
The Developers carry four standing accountabilities: creating the Sprint Backlog, instilling quality by adhering to a Definition of Done, adapting their plan each day toward the Sprint Goal, and holding each other accountable as professionals. That last one is the answer to every claim that self-management means nobody may be challenged. Removing the manager did not remove the accountability; it moved it into the team.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- Scrum Guide section Developers
- What it says
- Holding each other accountable as professionals.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 2 and space the ones you get wrong.
Practise Professional Scrum Master I
More questions on this objective
- A team lead who sits outside the Scrum Team has taken to opening the board every Monday and assigning each Sprint Backlog item to a named Developer for the week. The Developers say the assignments rarely match who is best placed to pick the work up. Who decides which Developer works on which item? machine-checked
- On day four of a two-week Sprint, a department head tells one of the five Developers to spend the rest of the week on a customer escalation for another product. The Sprint Goal depends on that Developer's work. What should the Scrum Master do? machine-checked
- During Sprint Planning, a solution architect who is not on the Scrum Team hands the Developers a task breakdown for each selected Product Backlog item and asks them to follow it. The Developers had planned to decompose the work differently. What does Scrum say about this? machine-checked
- A Scrum Team is reworking its Daily Scrum. They are tired of three questions each and want to try walking the board right to left instead, and they also want to know how much else about the event they are free to change. Which two of the following are genuinely theirs to decide? (Choose two.) machine-checked
- A Scrum Team has stopped keeping its Sprint Backlog current, and when a stakeholder asks how the Sprint is going the Developers reply that they are self-managing and will show the result at the Sprint Review. Two Sprints in a row have then missed the Sprint Goal. What is wrong here? machine-checked
- With three days of the Sprint left, the Developers agree among themselves to skip the security review and the automated regression suite, both of which are in the Definition of Done, so that two more items can be finished. They argue that as a self-managing team it is their call. Is it? machine-checked