Establishing Trust

Correct Answer: Have a one-on-one conversation, understand their concerns, and encourage them to participate by highlighting the value of their thoughts and insights.

In Scrum, trust and communication are key factors in a successful team. Conducting a one-on-one conversation with the passive team member can help you understand their concerns and apprehensions. By addressing these concerns and highlighting the value of their contribution, you can motivate them to participate actively in sprint planning and decision making. The other options – such as enforcing their participation by giving them more responsibilities, ignoring them, or threatening to report their behavior to the upper management – may lead to additional stress and negative attitudes within the team. These are not appropriate strategies in the cooperative and open environment that Scrum promotes.

Correct Answer: Encourage open, but respectful dialogue while ensuring that every viewpoint is heard

The best approach to handle this kind of situation as a Scrum Master is to 'Encourage open, but respectful dialogue while ensuring that every viewpoint is heard'. This is the key role of a Scrum Master, to facilitate communication, make sure all voices are heard, and to help to resolve conflicts. Any dissatisfactions should be addressed openly, but done so in a respectful manner to maintain team harmony. 'Let the team members resolve it themselves without intervening' is an incorrect approach because as a Scrum Master, one of the roles is to facilitate communication and help resolve conflicts. It's not desirable to completely step away when there's a conflict 'Take sides with the majority and enforce changes' is also not a good approach because it can create bias and further escalate the conflict. A Scrum Master's role is to be neutral and help keep the peace, not to take sides 'Cancel the retrospective meeting to avoid conflicts' is not advisable because retrospective meetings are an essential part of the Scrum process. They provide an opportunity for the team to reflect on the sprint that passed, discuss what worked and what didn't, and seek ways to improve.

Correct Answer: Facilitating a retrospective focused on open communication.

The best action by a Scrum Master to facilitate the reinforcement of trust within the team during a stressful project phase is facilitating a retrospective focused on open communication. This approach allows team members to openly discuss what went well and what could be improved in a safe environment, encouraging transparency, learning from mistakes, and collective problem-solving. In contrast, assigning clear tasks to team members, while helpful for clarity, does not necessarily build trust and may in fact imply a lack of trust in team members' abilities to manage their own tasks. Increasing daily stand-ups could be seen as micromanaging, potentially eroding trust further by implying that team members are not trusted to work independently or keep each other informed. Organizing team-building exercises, although potentially beneficial for morale, may not directly address the root causes of trust issues within the team or provide immediate relief during a high-stress period. Focusing on open communication through retrospectives directly targets the development of trust by fostering an environment of openness and mutual respect.