The day we overloaded the scrum with issues that were not part of the “triumvirate”

The context: A distributed team with very minimal inter-personal contact. Most conversations are by electronic means.

The scrum started out with each engineer being asked the usual trio of questions. The expected responses were given and then a tangential conversation about the best approach to take for a new project took root. Big mistake! Before long we had a virtual bun-fight that risked creating permanent schism within the team.

The lesson to learn from this saga is that face-to-face sessions are best when discussing issues bordering on religion. Once a jihad has taken root within the team then delivery of quality software will be impossible because the team is working against itself.  As a facilitator it is tempting to give additional bandwidth to groaners and the loudest shouters, but this has to be weighed against the greater needs of the team to work as a cohesive unit.