Impediments are a pretty simple concept. They are things which get in the way of work being completed, so depending on your situation, they can really be anything. But what are some of the major things that can get in the way of you dealing with impediments, and what is your role as a Scrum Master in all this?

If the team isn't empowered to make decisions on how they work, they won't be able to deal with things that get in their way. Make sure that the development team feels empowered to innovate and take ownership of the work they're doing. Don't be afraid to push them by asking tough questions, and show leadership by defending their decisions to the organizations if you need to.

Organizations tend to have processes and tools that they use, and it's easy for teams to assume that these are constraints and just the way that things have to be. Actually, these are assumptions unless the organization makes it clear that they're constraints. The team will generally be aware of the impact of the impediment as either slowing or stopping them from delivering the value for the organization. However, other people in the organization might not be aware of these impediments. If the impediment is reoccurring, take your time to quantify it and make it visible to the organization, then take what you've done to the people with authority to help you overcome them.

If you put too much work into a sprint, you run the risk of the team not having enough time to deal with impediments when they occur. Protect your team from outside pressures that aren't tempting to fix the scope of work in place. Make sure that reoccurring impediments are visible and taken account of during sprint planning.

Lastly, don't be afraid to bring up impediments during the sprint reviews with the stakeholders, especially if they're a part of that impediment. While the retro is often used to discuss impediments, remember that as the Scrum Master, you represent the Scrum team and can challenge the stakeholder. Often, the most frustrating impediments are within your own organization and it can be a challenge to get management involved to remove them.

It's your responsibility to remove impediments for your team, which means that you need to work with management to remove organizational impediments. Do this by building strong relationships with management and help them understand the impact of the impediment on your team's ability to deliver value.

That's it for this video. While the idea of impediments is a simple one, dealing with them can be difficult. Keep on top of anything that is impacting your team and find ways to remove them by empowering your team, understanding the difference between assumptions and constraints, making sure that impediments are understood by the team and organization, not overcrowding the sprint, and getting management involved with removing impediments.

Impediments

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