Ideally, everyone on your Scrum Team is full-time and there for a good reason, with all the skills necessary to complete a “done” increment. However, if having a fully cross-functional team is impossible, you may end up with individuals who are only assigned part-time.
There are a few scenarios when people might only be part-time members of a Scrum Team:
- The person possesses specialized skills or knowledge that only they have
- The person is on multiple projects or teams at the same time
- The person only works part-time
Here’s what may happen when people are only part-time members of a Scrum Team:
Bottlenecks
Right out of the gate, you’re going to have bottlenecks. Anytime the skills of the part-timer are needed, your work will come to a complete stop. Like a traffic jam, clearing the blockage and getting people moving again takes a lot of time.
Re-sequencing Work
To avoid a bottleneck, a Scrum Team might decide to re-sequence the work to work around the part-time person. By doing this, the items the team chooses will likely not be the highest priority or most valuable. If you’re not doing the right things first, your Product Owner, customers, and stakeholders may all be disappointed.
Inability to get to “Done” within a Sprint
In most cases, part-time team members reduce the probability that the Scrum Team will be able to complete increments that meet their definition of “done” within the Sprint. The unfinished work is either returned to the Product Backlog or carried over to the next Sprint, demoralizing to the whole team.
Less than full Fellowship
When a person is only a part-time member of a Scrum Team, they don’t develop the same depth of relationships with fellow teammates as the rest of the team. Unfortunately, this can lead to an “us versus them” mentality in which the part-time person isn’t treated the same way as everyone else. Instead, they get ignored and left on the fringes and may also get overlooked for recognition.
Frustration
Sadly, I have been a split resource a few times in my career, and it’s never fun. You want to support your teams, pull your weight, and get things done, but when you’re only part-time allocated, there’s only so much you can do. It is frustrating to be the one who leads to bottlenecks and causes the team to feel resentment because they can’t get across the finish line.
Burnout
The part-time person on a Scrum Team is at a much higher risk of burnout. Being pulled in multiple directions means constantly trying to decide how best to spend your time. No matter what choices you make, someone usually ends up unhappy. You may find yourself doing extra work to keep up, which isn’t sustainable and will inevitably lead to burnout.
Loss of Efficiency
Context switching is a gigantic efficiency killer; whenever you stop something and start something else, you experience waste. It might not seem like a big deal, but the cumulative impact is massive if you do the math. There is a substantial cost in time, money, energy, and outcomes.
Unclear Priorities
Having dueling leaders is a constant juggling act, in which the priorities are always shifting and unclear. If you have two bosses, whose work is more important? There’s unlikely to be a consensus between two different supervisors, both of whom would argue that their work should take priority. In this situation, you’ll find yourself as the rope in the middle of a tug-of-war.
Lack of Focus
My favorite analogy about getting stuff done is shoes. I love shoes – a lot. I have hundreds of pairs of shoes and a whole closet wall dedicated to my shoes. If I were to wear one pair each day and rotate through all my shoes, how long would it take before I wear out even a single pair? It would take forever. But, if I only have one pair of shoes and wear them every day, how long would it take to wear out that pair? A very short amount of time. The same is true of work. The more you are able and allowed to focus on one thing (and one thing only), the more quickly you will get it done. As a part-time team member, you won’t ever be in a situation where you can truly focus.
Final Thoughts
Normally, I like to present problems and possible solutions, but in this blog, I only see negative issues resulting from part-time Scrum Team members. It’s not healthy for the part-time person, the Scrum Team, the functional managers, or the organization. No one is happy, less will get done, and what does get done will take longer. My advice is to re-organize your teams, upskill and cross-train to remove the need for specialists, and dedicate individuals full-time to one team.
Now, how about you? Have you dealt with part-time people on a Scrum Team? If so, did you experience any problems others than those covered in this blog? I would love to hear your story, please share it with me in the comments!