Tips for ScrumMasters of Distributed Teams

This week Jessica Wolfe and Dave Prior respond to a question about how to be an effective ScrumMaster when you are not in the same location as your team. To complicate matters even more, try stepping into the ScrumMaster role in place of an SM who was colocated with part of the team. If that doesn’t seem challenging enough — try two Product Owners working with the team.

Here is the question:

My Scrum team consists of 4 devs in San Diego and 3 devs and 2 POs remotely (I know, breaking a rule right there having 2 POs and multiple projects assigned to one team) The previous scrum master for our team was located in San Diego and was able to have actual facetime with the portion of the team 2 times a week on average. Tuesday for Daily Scrum and Wednesdays for Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective and Sprint Planning (and then off week’s Daily Scrum and Backlog Refinement).

While we do everything virtually (Sprint backlog, Product Backlog, screenshare ceremonies encouraging video (but not required)), it was something the team welcomed, it was a rallying day, and I believe allowed the SM a better check on the morale/heartbeat of over half the team — seeing them in person, having easier one on one time available if needed.

I have now taken over as SM for this team and another team (other team is all remote and they never met in person regularly), so I’m wondering if you might have any suggestions to foster that same closeness, continue to keep a close pulse on the team and provide a safe environment for openness and collaboration while serving the team from across the country.

If you are curious about Jason Kelce’s speech at the Eagles parade, here you go:

If you’d like to contact Jessica you can reach her at:

If you’d like to contact Dave you can reach him at:

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