At the Sprint Review the Developers proudly demonstrate eleven finished items. Three of them still have manual steps outstanding that the team's Definition of Done requires, and the Product Owner cannot tell what he is able to release. The Developers explain that the number of items closed is what their manager looks at. How should the Scrum Master serve the Scrum Team here?
Professional Scrum Master I, objective 2. Developing people and teams medium
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The options
Correct Help the team focus on creating high-value Increments that meet the Definition of Done, and coach the manager on why a count of closed items says nothing about value
Correct. Helping the Scrum Team focus on high-value Increments that meet the Definition of Done is a named service to the team, and the incentive driving the behaviour sits outside the team, which is where the second half of the work is.
Not correct Add a step to the Definition of Done requiring the Scrum Master to check an item before it is demonstrated
Wrong. Scrum gives the Scrum Master no approval role, and inserting one replaces the team's own accountability for quality with a queue at his desk.
Not correct Ask the Product Owner to reject the three items at the Sprint Review so the Developers feel the consequence
Wrong, and it is a near miss because something does have to happen to those items. An item that does not meet the Definition of Done cannot be presented at the Sprint Review at all; it returns to the Product Backlog, and no acceptance decision by the Product Owner is involved.
Not correct Say nothing now and let the Developers raise it in the Sprint Retrospective if they think it matters
Wrong. Leaving it to chance is not neutrality — the Product Owner is already making release decisions on a false picture of what is finished, and restoring that transparency will not wait.
Why
The Definition of Done is what makes an Increment inspectable: the moment an item meets it, everyone looking at the Increment shares the same understanding of what is finished. Eleven items that mostly meet it produce a number instead of a shared understanding, and the Product Owner's next decision rests on the number. Notice where the cause lies — a manager counting items — and notice that the Scrum Master's service to the team therefore runs outward as well as inward.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- Scrum Guide section Scrum Master
- What it says
- Helping the Scrum Team focus on creating high-value Increments that meet the Definition of Done;
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