Busyness and Slack Time

Written By Allison Pollard

Photo by Sarah Joy

Lyssa Adkins's Agile Coaches email had a great quote from Henry David Thoreau this morning that I had to share:

It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?

I've noticed many scrum teams that are just starting out focus on keeping everyone busy--is there enough work for all of the developers?  All of the testers?  UX?  Business analysts?  And so on.  Unfortunately, it often means that the team commits to too much work in its iterations, and in-progress stories roll over from one sprint to the next.  How does a Scrum Master help his team get stories to Done?  Stop keeping people busy.

Harvard Business Review recently had an article about busyness that highlights the issue:

busyness seems to be most productive when the tasks we busy ourselves with are also meaningful.

Is the Scrum Master or a manager trying to keep team members' plates full, or is the team doing it themselves?  Often the behavior the team can be traced back to external influences, so listen to the messages that the team is hearing.  Important work shouldn't be left to be done during slack time, so help the team to commit to a realistic amount of work each iteration and have time for learning, improving, and refactoring. 

Allison Pollard

Allison Pollard is a coach, consultant, and trainer who brings the power of relationship systems intelligence to go beyond tasks, roles, and frameworks to create energy for change. She engages with people and teams in a down-to-earth way to build trust and listen for signals to help them learn more and improve. Allison focuses on creating alignment and connection for people to solve business problems together. Her experience includes working with teams and leaders in energy, retail, financial, real estate, and transportation industries to help improve their project/product delivery and culture. Allison currently volunteers as program director for Women in Agile’s mentorship program. Her agile community focus is championing new voices and amplifying women as mentors and sponsors for the next generation of leaders. Allison earned her bachelor’s degrees in computer science, mathematics, and English from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. She is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC), a foodie, and proud glasses wearer. Allison is a prolific speaker at professional groups and international conferences, including Scrum Gatherings and the Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. Allison is co-owner of Helping Improve LLC.

http://www.allisonpollard.com
Previous

The Trouble with Tools
Next

Remembering to Breathe