I saw an interesting discussion on a Linked In group about how to measure the effectiveness of a Scrum Master. Someone suggested velocity should increase. I violently disagree with that one for a whole bunch of reasons but that’s not the point of this point.
Firstly, I don’t like metrics and measurements as it relates to “productivity” or “measurement” of people. I don’t know how to measure those and I haven’t heard any valid arguments for doing such.
For argument’s sake, let’s say you need some non-sensical measurement to rate the effectiveness of a Scrum Master because you don’t trust them you want to reward high productivity.
I introduce to you, the Impediment Resolution Metric.
Here’s how it works:
- Team has an “impediment”
- Put the impediment on a visible impediment wall using a sticky note.
- for each hour/day/week/month/year that passes, put a tick on the sticky note.
- Have the team define what “done” means for that impediment
- Track number of impediment resolutions per hour/day/week/month/year
- If the average time-to-resolution of impediments increases, shame the Scrum Master publicly
- If the average time-to-resolution of impediments decreases, give the Scrum Master a cookie
Seriously though, how would you know if your Scrum Master is doing Scrum Mastering stuff? Well, you can start by asking these questions:
- Do your team meetings still suck?
- Are your retrospectives the same old boring “well, not well, try” that rarely have actionable items attached to them?
- Is the team constantly over committing?
- Under-committing?
- Are you still using a stand-up token like a ball or beanbag?
What do you think? Can you measure the effectiveness of any employee in knowledge work?