by Jason Gardner (ed.)
Every Scrum Team encounters impediments. They are a natural part of working on complex products, where teams learn continuously, technology evolves, customer needs become clearer, and organizational conditions change. Scrum gives teams frequent opportunities to make those challenges visible and improve the way they work.
An impediment can also provide valuable information. When a team encounters a problem once, resolving it helps restore progress. When the same problem appears repeatedly, the Scrum Team has an opportunity to learn something more important about its working environment.
The most effective Scrum Teams develop the habit of looking beyond immediate resolution. They ask why the problem occurred, what conditions contributed to it, and what improvement could prevent the same problem from slowing progress again.
That approach turns impediment removal into continuous improvement.
Impediments Give Scrum Teams Something to Learn From
Consider a Scrum Team whose Developers repeatedly wait for access to a testing environment. Each time the problem occurs, someone contacts the appropriate group, receives approval, and restores access. The Developers continue working and the immediate problem is resolved.
After several occurrences, the Scrum Team has collected useful evidence. The repeated delays may reveal an opportunity to improve the environment provisioning process, simplify an approval procedure, clarify responsibilities, automate access, or give the Scrum Team greater ability to manage the resources necessary to create value.
Scrum helps enable this kind of learning because transparency makes problems easier to inspect. Once the Scrum Team can see a recurring pattern, it can explore the conditions creating that pattern and determine what adaptation would improve effectiveness.
A recurring impediment can therefore become a valuable source of information about how the organization works.
Scrum Creates Frequent Opportunities to Improve
Scrum is founded on empiricism and lean thinking. Teams gain knowledge through experience and make decisions based on what they observe. This provides Scrum Teams with a practical framework for continually learning about both their product and the way they create it.
The Daily Scrum gives Developers an opportunity to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt the Sprint Backlog. During this inspection, Developers may identify impediments affecting their progress. Making those impediments visible early gives the team an opportunity to respond quickly and preserve focus on the Sprint Goal.
The Sprint Retrospective provides another important opportunity. The Scrum Team inspects how the Sprint went with regard to individuals, interactions, processes, tools, and the Definition of Done. Problems encountered during the Sprint and how they were addressed are part of that inspection.
This gives Scrum Teams a natural opportunity to look for patterns. If a particular problem continues to appear, the Sprint Retrospective can help the team explore its causes and identify an improvement that increases quality and effectiveness.
At the next Sprint Retrospective, the team has new evidence to inspect. Did waiting decrease? Did quality improve? Did collaboration become easier? What should the team adapt next?
This cycle of transparency, inspection, and adaptation is one of Scrum’s greatest strengths.
Scrum Masters Help Build Problem Solving Capability
The Scrum Master plays an important role in helping the Scrum Team become more effective. The Scrum Master is accountable for establishing Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide and for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness. The Scrum Master also ensures the removal of impediments to the Scrum Team’s progress.
That responsibility presents an important coaching opportunity.
Scrum Teams are self managing. As the team’s capabilities grow, Developers, the Product Owner, and the Scrum Master can collaborate to address challenges within their areas of responsibility and influence. A skilled Scrum Master helps create the conditions where the Scrum Team becomes increasingly capable of recognizing problems, understanding them, and taking appropriate action.
For example, a Developer may discover that access to an important tool has expired. The Scrum Master can help the team determine why the problem occurred, who can best address it, and whether the situation reveals a larger opportunity for improvement. Over time, this approach strengthens the team’s ability to solve problems without creating unnecessary dependency on a single person.
Some impediments extend beyond the authority of the Scrum Team. In those situations, the Scrum Master can work with stakeholders and organizational leaders to make the problem visible and support an effective organizational response.
This is one of the ways a Scrum Master can create significant value beyond an individual Sprint.
Find the Conditions Creating Recurring Impediments
Recurring impediments deserve thoughtful inspection. The objective is to understand the conditions contributing to the problem well enough to identify a useful improvement.
Imagine that work repeatedly waits for approval from another department. The Scrum Team can begin by examining how the approval process works. The team might discover that requests arrive too late, approval criteria are unclear, only one person has authority to approve the work, or the process contains unnecessary handoffs.
Each discovery creates a different improvement opportunity.
The team might make approval criteria transparent earlier in development. Leadership might delegate appropriate authority. The organization might automate part of the process. Teams might collaborate earlier so the approval requirement is understood before work begins.
Sometimes the inspection will show that an existing constraint serves a necessary purpose. Even then, the Scrum Team can explore ways to work effectively within that constraint and reduce unnecessary waiting.
The important habit is curiosity. When an impediment appears repeatedly, ask what the experience can teach the team and the organization.
Organizational Impediments Create Opportunities for Leadership
Some recurring impediments reveal opportunities that extend beyond a single Scrum Team. Organizational policies, governance structures, dependencies, technology constraints, funding approaches, and approval processes can all influence how effectively Scrum Teams deliver value.
When several Scrum Teams encounter similar impediments, leaders gain useful information about the organizational system. A repeated dependency across multiple teams, for example, may reveal an opportunity to improve team structure, technical architecture, decision authority, or collaboration.
Scrum Masters can help leaders understand these patterns by making the impact visible. Instead of presenting a general concern about an approval process, the Scrum Master can show how frequently the issue occurs, how much waiting it creates, and how it affects the ability of Scrum Teams to achieve their goals.
This gives leaders evidence they can use to make thoughtful improvements.
At Platinum Edge, this broader perspective is an important part of helping organizations increase agility. Scrum can make organizational challenges visible. Coaching, leadership, and organizational improvement can then help address the conditions that limit teams from reaching their potential.
Five Practices for Addressing Recurring Impediments
Scrum Teams can use several practical approaches to turn recurring impediments into opportunities for improvement.
- Make recurring patterns visible. If Developers repeatedly encounter environment access problems, approval delays, unavailable expertise, or external dependencies, capture enough information to see the pattern. Frequency, waiting time, and impact on the Sprint Goal can provide useful evidence.
- Restore progress and continue learning. Resolve the immediate issue so the Scrum Team can continue working toward the Sprint Goal. Then inspect the conditions that created the problem and identify an improvement that could reduce the chance of recurrence.
- Use the Sprint Retrospective to investigate recurring problems. A statement such as “testing slowed us down” provides a starting point. The Scrum Team can examine when the delays occurred, what caused the waiting, and what experiment could improve the situation during the next Sprint.
- Give improvements meaningful attention. When the Scrum Team identifies an important improvement, make the action visible and follow through. The 2020 Scrum Guide allows the most impactful improvements identified during the Sprint Retrospective to be added to the Sprint Backlog for the next Sprint.
- Bring organizational impediments to leaders with evidence. A recurring issue becomes easier to address when leaders understand its impact. Showing that an approval process created eleven days of cumulative waiting across three Sprints gives leaders specific information they can inspect and act upon.
Build a Scrum Team That Gets Better Every Sprint
The real opportunity in impediment removal is improvement.
Every impediment teaches the Scrum Team something about the product development environment. Every recurring impediment provides additional evidence. Every Sprint creates another opportunity to inspect that evidence and adapt.
Over time, Scrum Teams can develop stronger problem solving capabilities. Developers learn how to address challenges collaboratively. Product Owners help maintain focus on value and the Product Goal. Scrum Masters help teams and organizations improve their effectiveness. Leaders can use patterns revealed by Scrum Teams to improve the broader organizational environment.
The result is a healthier system for creating value.
The next time your Scrum Team encounters an impediment, resolve what needs attention so progress can continue. Then bring curiosity to the experience. Look for patterns, inspect contributing conditions, and identify an improvement worth trying.
When teams use Scrum this way, impediments become opportunities to learn, improve, and create an increasingly effective environment for delivering value.
If your Scrum Teams are repeatedly encountering the same impediments, there may be a valuable opportunity to improve the system around them.
Contact Platinum Edge to learn how we can help your teams strengthen Scrum, increase effectiveness, and create an environment where continuous improvement becomes part of everyday work.
