Ok, first blog post of the scrum hipster is about something I often see at other teams and really annoys me. Day goals. Some sort of micro management where, often the scrum master or worse a project manager, decided which task or stories should be done at the end of the day. This is bad scrum for the following reasons:
- It is micro management and it gives a false hope for control
- Creates waste.
- It creates some sort of hierarchy in your team when someone determines which specific task you should do.
- It creates a blame culture. When you don't finish your task on team someone tells you that is bad. But the only thing that can be bad if the whole team can't succeed in finishing the sprint, instead or individual tasks.
- It prevents the team to manage them theirself and complete the stories the way the team wants to.
- It disrupts the peace in the team.
In my opinion day goals are a sign of absence of trust. The Project manager or Scrum manager does not trust the team in completing the sprint theirself so decides to take control. Absence of trust is one of the key aspects of a dysfunction team. Please do read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni for more great information about these problems and how to fix them. I would start with addressing the trust problem very seriously by discussing this with the whole team. In my next article I will give you some advice how to work on your trust problem.
So. No more day goals. Focus on facilitating your team with everything in your power to make them work as efficient as possible instead of controlling them. That works much better and is way more fun :)
So. No more day goals. Focus on facilitating your team with everything in your power to make them work as efficient as possible instead of controlling them. That works much better and is way more fun :)