Dealing with interrupts

One of the primary responsibilities of a Scrum Master to is deal with the interrupts. Given that at any moment your day can be thrown completely out of whack by interrupts from unknown sources, how do you keep sanity? Here are some thoughts on what Scrum Masters can do.

Apply Scrum knowledge:

If you understand the basics of Scrum, you know that each new work item flows through a backlog where it gets prioritized. The always team works on prioritized backlog of work items. The backlog is continuously groomed, so high priority items are always bubbled up to the top.

I recommend following the same practice for dealing with multiple interrupts. Maintain a to-do list. The list serves as your backlog. When an interrupt comes in, put it on your to-do list first. Next, prioritize your to-do list over again to understand where this latest interrupt fits in. Once the list is prioritized, you can work on the highest priority item in the list. This simple approach helped me stay calm and not get overwhelmed when there were ‘too many things going on’.

Before you leave for the day, consider prioritizing your to-do list again, in preparation for the next day.  That way you are prepared for the next day before you leave. This also helps make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

Take time to prepare:

The best way to make sure you get the most out of your time is to be prepared for meetings, especially the ones where the whole team is going to participate. If the Scrum Master isn’t prepared, it can, at best - waste everyone’s time, or at worst – cause confusion about what the team is supposed to accomplish and how. 

If you are a slave of your calendar, I recommend blocking time off. Consider blocking 15 mins before an important meeting. This gives you time to get organized, and think things through. You can use the time to anticipate the questions that will be asked, and have answers ready. 

If you are behind on your preparation, consider rescheduling the next meeting. Take that time to organize the rest of the meetings and try to get ahead. 

Coach:

I recommend maintaining a list of sources from where you see most of your interrupts. This list can help you take a step back and figure out why you are seeing the interrupts.

If there are standard set of activities that some people / teams can do on their own without your involvement, consider giving them that authority. Coach the interrupt sources to send their requests in a manner that works best with you. For example - if you see that all the interrupts from one particular source can wait until the end of that day, ask them to contact you at a time that works best with you.

If you find that the team's chain of command is the reason the team gets most interrupts, try to influence them - ask the question - is this really so important that you risk derailing the current sprint. Coach the people to put interrupts in the backlog and prioritize them with the help of the PO.

Evasive maneuvers:

If your team is at the end of a major release, it can be true that most of the work is in the form of handling incoming defects. 

Rather than treating each new defect as an interrupt, consider abandoning sprint cycles entirely. Consider working in Kanban mode, where incoming defects / tickets are available for the team to pick up and work on. Folks on the team can pick up defects they are most comfortable fixing. Scrum sprints can be resumed when it is time to start working on stories for the next release.

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