Problem Identification

Correct Answer: Facilitate further discussion, bringing the item owner in if necessary and re-estimate.

The best course of action for a ScrumMaster, when the team can't reach a conclusion on story estimation, is to facilitate further discussion. This could include bringing in the owner of the item if necessary and revisiting the estimation process. The reason this is the best choice is because the ScrumMaster's role involves facilitation and aiding the team rather than making decisions for the team which explains why 'Overrule the team and assign an estimate' isn't a suitable answer. Similarly, removing the story from the sprint backlog won't solve the issue at hand and it may result in an important user story being missed. Lastly, while voting could be used in some decision making contexts within a team, it should not be adopted for estimations because they are not collective decisions but involve an understanding of the work and time required which may vary among team members.

Correct Answer: Talk to the team about the issues and try to identify the root cause.

The first and most crucial step to improving a situation where productivity is lacking or product quality is getting compromised is to identify the root cause of the problem. Thus, 'Talk to the team about the issues and try to identify the root cause' is the best answer. In Scrum, the ScrumMaster is responsible for helping the team work together efficiently, and to do that, they need to understand the issues that are preventing the team from doing so. Shortcomings may be due to a variety of reasons such as unrealistic expectations, poor time management, lack of technical skills, etc. Once these are identified, they can subsequently be addressed. The other options suggested - 'Increase the duration of the sprints', 'Bring on more developers to the existing team' , and 'Talk to upper management about the team's performance' can be considered a leaping to conclusions without fully understanding the problem at hand, making them wrong answers for the first step to improve the situation.

Correct Answer: Discuss the issue in the sprint retrospective meeting and come to a solution that everyone agrees upon.

The best approach to address the issue of team members not showing up for the daily scrum, which is impacting the entire team's performance, is to 'Discuss the issue in the sprint retrospective meeting and come to a solution that everyone agrees upon.' This approach promotes open communication, encourages team responsibility, and fosters collaborative problem-solving, which are all key principles in Scrum. The reason why the other answers are not the best options is that: 'Cancelling the daily scrum meetings until everyone agrees to attend.' This can lead to more miscommunication and hampers the Scrum process where daily scrums are essential. 'Escalating the issue to upper management.' In Scrum, teams are self-organizing and should ideally be able to resolve their issues without escalated intervention. 'Ignoring the issue hoping for it to resolve on its own over time.' This goes against Scrum values of transparency, inspection, and adaptation. It's important to openly discuss and address team's issue instead of ignoring it.