Why Focus on Impediments?

Tom Breur

15 February 2015       

In Scrum there is a tight script for daily standups:

- What did I complete yesterday?

- What will I commit to for today?

- What are my impediments?

Somehow the “impediments” part either tends to get forgotten quite often, or is subject to decay. People loose inspiration to find new ways of phrasing what is holding them back the most from being more productive.

By repeatedly focusing on impediments, you can learn:

• New ways of phrasing, and looking at problems in your work that are slowing you down. Changing the language can sometimes dramatically change the way you look at the root cause of an impediment;
• Patterns, common “themes” in impediments as time goes by, that you can use as input for Retrospectives. They can also drive improvement efforts (e.g.: Kaizen);
• Every day, there might be someone, who thinks of a way to help you, reach out to you, to cope more effectively with any particular impediment. For him or her, a change in language can inspire new solutions as well.

There is nothing wrong with spending a few minutes prior to the standup to prepare what you plan to say. Sometimes humor can help, sometimes a clinical and sterile (“distant”) perspective on your issues, or anything like theater, comedy, non-verbal sign language, whatever it takes to keep your standup meetings lively and inspiring.

The floor is yours – shine!