A member of the Scrum Team does not want to participate in Sprint Planning and considers the meetings a waste of time. How do you deal with this attitude?
If the member of a Developers does not want to participate in Sprint Planning and considers the meetings a waste of time, they’re exhibiting a type of passive-aggressive behavior. Although not particular to Scrum, this is a problem because the underlying attitude is toxic and will affect both team-building and team performance as now the knowledge of a team member will not be available at Sprint Planning.
When the member of Developers behaves as described, the team’s Scrum Master needs to take action. Counterproductive behavior can neither be ignored nor tolerated if the team is to continue functioning. Effective action is likely to require probably a series of escalating steps:
- The Scrum Master may start by addressing the team member privately to discuss their reservations and, perhaps, more coaching needs or a longer training period.
- Following private discussion, the entire Scrum Team can be involved by making the team member’s reservations a topic of discussion during one or more Sprint Retrospectives. This enables the Scrum Team to offer their support to their teammate.
- If there is still no change in the team member’s attitude, a meeting with the team member and their line-manager is advisable.
- If no change can be achieved, it might be possible to reassign the team member to another (probably non-agile) team, or to a Kanban team unlikely to force the team member out of their comfort zone.
Situations such as described highlight how Scrum is not meant for everybody.
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