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Imagine your development team is consistently falling short of meeting the Sprint Goal. Stakeholders are concerned, and team morale is slipping. How would you address this situation as a Scrum Master?

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 Ram
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(@ram)
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(@mohit0524)
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Addressing a situation where a development team consistently falls short of meeting the Sprint Goal requires a strategic and collaborative approach as a Scrum Master. Few proactive steps i would take
1. Identify the root cause of initiating discussions with team.
2. After identifying root cause if required to adjust sprint goal, i will initiate a discussion with product owner and collaborate with team adjust same.
3. Conduct regular retrospectives to gather feedback from the team and have open communications to identify improvement areas in order to achieve sprint goal.
4. Identify any skill gaps within the team that may be hindering their ability to meet the Sprint Goals and facilitate trainings for same.
5. In case , we identify team morale is low. Acknowledge the challenges openly, recognize the team's efforts, and express confidence in their abilities to overcome obstacles.
6. Seek external support, such as bringing in an Agile coach or consultant in case team is not able to solve the issue internally.

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Target agility
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@mohit0524 , adjusting to Sprint Goal within a Sprint is not recommended as per Scrum Guide 2020. So, you may want to put some example where you had to make it happen. You could discuss with stakeholders also to understand how can you address their concern while team is working on retrospective ideas.

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(@gazalasayyed)
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Few actions I would take as a SM: 

  • Discuss the issue with the team and list down their challenges. Tell them this will be crucial conversation but if they really want to overcome this everyone has to give 100% transparency about their issues / challenges without any hesitation. Set the stage for open conversation. Encourage constructive criticism. 
  • Brainstorm these challenges with scrum team and carve out plan for taking actions on them. Here let majority of planning be done by team so they will own these actions. SM's role s just to guide them. 
  • Do rough estimate with development team on how much time it will be required to complete those actions. Keep some buffering. 
  • While analyzing on challenges also check Team's moral. Encourage them and motivate them to start working on overcoming these. Get external help arranged wherever required. Don't allow any external team members to have any conversation with team members on these issues which might discourage them more. 
  • Get items re-prioritize along with PO and ask Team to start focusing on work as per priority. While taking work in sprint keep it low at the start as team will spend some time on overcoming challenges. Once they get into rhythm you can increase the in Flow. 
  • Do some team building activity and make team comfortable with this situation. Explain them Failure is welcomed in Agile , we do experiment , we fail and we again come up with ideas and we deliver. 
  • Do meeting with stakeholders along with PO. Try and explain them challenges team is facing and our plan to overcome them. Give them confidence about overcoming them and doing deliveries on time. Present good plan with all details. Also schedule periodic review with them to check on situation. This way we will keep our stakeholders in confidence and trust will not break. Give all transparency needed to them. Pls ask for time if required by the team to get back on track. 
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Target agility
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@gazalasayyed , good and elaborative answer. Would have appreciated connection between points. For example, after point 2, point 7 should have been done. Response a bit lengthy so making it crisp and packed would have helped.

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Target agility
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This is a very common scenario with the Scrum Team and I have been part of many such situations.

One such situation was when I was working with a large finance company last year. The situation was similar, ie. the team was frequently missing their Sprint Goal and this led to shallow team morale. And to add to that, the escalation of stakeholders was not helping either.
To address the situation, I called out for a mini-retrospective with the team to identify the root causes of why we are missing Sprint Goals. I was cautious not to let this meeting go down the blame game route and focus predominantly on problem-solving.
Through collaborative discussion, we identified a lack of clear Acceptance Criteria and refined User Stories as predominant reasons for such frequent misses.

Once the issues were identified, I collaborated with the team to devise actionable solutions, such as refining user stories and breaking down tasks. I took them through a User story-splitting workshop and planned for a workshop with stakeholders on how to write effective User Stories and Acceptance criteria.

Simultaneously, I engaged with stakeholders to provide transparency about the challenges we face and the steps we take to address them. This transparency helped build trust and alignment between the team and stakeholders, reducing concerns and improving communication and collaboration between Stakeholders and the team.

To address slipping morale, I focused on boosting team morale through recognition, and support. This involved celebrating small wins and fostering a positive and supportive team environment.

Throughout this process, I emphasized the importance of empiricism. By implementing effective solutions, inspecting progress, and adapting as needed, the team gradually regained momentum and worked towards consistently achieving Sprint Goals.

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