Scrum of Scrums

Correct Answer: Address the issue privately with the Scrum Master expressing the benefits of transparency and coordination in Scrum of Scrums meetings.

The correct approach is to address the issue directly with the Scrum Master in a private setting. This emphasizes the importance of transparency and collaboration, which are key in scaled Scrum environments like the Scrum of Scrums for managing dependencies and sharing progress across teams. The wrong answers, though related to improving communication and team dynamics, shift away from directly addressing the behavior of avoiding progress reporting and may not effectively resolve the core issue.

Correct Answer: Guide the meeting to focus more on identifying and addressing impediments, dependencies, and risks.

The most beneficial use of Scrum of Scrums meetings is to identify and address impediments, dependencies, risks, and to facilitate cross-team coordination. This approach aligns meetings with the overall purpose of Scrum, which is to deliver value incrementally throughout the project and adapt to changes swiftly and effectively. Turning the meeting into a mere status update not only devalues its importance but also may result in the team missing out on critical risks or dependencies that need addressing. The idea to cancel the Scrum of Scrums meetings altogether is incorrect, as these meetings provide a valuable platform for teams to discuss and align on the big picture, beyond their individual team’s perspective. Increasing the frequency of the meetings to get more updates is not necessarily beneficial. It could lead to meeting fatigue and be seen as a waste of time if these meetings do not bring any additional value compared to the current status updates. It’s not about having more meetings, but making the existing meetings more impactful that's important in Scrum. Insisting that only Scrum Masters attend the meetings without representatives from other Scrum teams could lead to the lack of important perspectives and information from team members who are actually doing the work. In Scrum, it's important that knowledge and information are distributed among team members, which suggests that having a variety of representatives in these meetings would be much more beneficial.

Correct Answer: Ask the representatives from affected teams to collaborate and find a solution and then communicate the plan to all.

In scrum methodology, owning and resolving the problem is a collaborative effort that allows teams to work together for the mutual benefit of the project. Hence, the best approach when a significant problem arises during a Scrum of Scrums meeting is to 'Ask the representatives from affected teams to collaborate and find a solution and then communicate the plan to all.' This kind of collaboration ensures a better understanding of the problem and enables the creation of an effective solution. The other answers are wrong. 'Ignore the problem, hoping it will resolve itself in due time' is not the scrum way that encourages proactive resolution of issues. Asking only the team identifying the problem to resolve it does not promote collective responsibility, a key characteristic of successful scrum teams. Finally, escalating the problem to top-level management immediately underestimates the problem-solving capabilities of the scrum teams and is contrary to the self-organizing principle of scrum.