The Scrum Master is away on the Monday that Sprint Planning falls. The Developers ask whether to postpone the event until he is back on Wednesday. What is the correct answer?
Professional Scrum Master I, objective 2. Developing people and teams hard
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The options
Not correct Postpone until Wednesday, because the Scrum Master facilitates Sprint Planning and the event needs a facilitator
Wrong, and it is the answer most organisations would give. Losing two days of the Sprint to protect a facilitation habit is a poor trade, and it treats the event as the Scrum Master's rather than the team's.
Not correct Have the Product Owner chair the event and decide which items go into the Sprint so the plan is authoritative
Wrong. The Product Owner proposes how value could increase and discusses the items, but selecting what the Sprint takes on is the Developers' decision, chair or no chair.
Not correct Appoint a deputy Scrum Master for the day so the accountability is covered
Wrong. Scrum defines three accountabilities and no deputies; inventing one to satisfy a rule that does not exist is a heavier fix than simply holding the event.
Correct Hold Sprint Planning as scheduled — the new Sprint has already started, and nothing in Scrum makes the event conditional on the Scrum Master being in the room
Correct. A new Sprint starts immediately after the conclusion of the previous one, so Wednesday is not a delayed start but two Sprint days spent without a Sprint Goal or a plan. The Scrum Master is accountable for the event taking place; Scrum nowhere makes his presence a condition of it happening.
Why
Facilitating an event, running an event and being required at an event are three different things, and only the first is the Scrum Master's service. Sprint Planning, the Sprint Review and the Retrospective are the Scrum Team's events; the Daily Scrum is the Developers'. The Scrum Master's absence is a reason to check whether the team can hold a good event without him — and if the honest answer is no, that is the coaching goal, not an argument for postponing Sprints.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- Scrum Guide section The Sprint
- What it says
- A new Sprint starts immediately after the conclusion of the previous Sprint.
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