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One of the basic goals of Scrum is to get work done. If you are not getting more done, you are not doing Scrum right. A lot of business leaders and executives like to call this “improved productivity” and almost all of my clients are drawn to Scrum because they believe Scrum will deliver “faster and cheaper”. While I would not make those claims (I prefer to focus on improved quality, customer satisfaction and engagement), the basic elements of Scrum – timeboxing, dedicated Teams and an emphasis on delivery – help immensely with productivity.
However, to get even greater levels of productivity, the kind of crazy 10X productivity that Jeff Sutherland regularly talks about, one needs to increase the Team’s focus. At Ron Quartel’s (@AgileAgitator) talk at the Phoenix Scrum Gathering, he emphasized the importance of the ScrumMaster to watch the office landscape like a hawk for any distractions and time wasting. These interruptions in focus come from the individual Team members, their work habits, how the Team members work with each other and from the business environment. In Peopleware, DeMarco and Lister spend a huge chunk of their book talking about distracting office environments and I believe the business is the greatest source of distractions on the Team members.
There are four areas where ScrumMasters can improve the Team’s focus: doing the work, defining the work, responding to emergent work and dealing with distractions. Here are some ideas you can try to increase the focus of the Team.