For a Scrum team to work together effectively, they need to be at work at the same time.
Everyone.
At the same time.
The team will have to come to agreement on those hours, but that means, for example, that the whole team is there from 8am-5pm with a one hour lunch break from noon-1.
I know some of you are unhappy about that. But really, how can you expect to work directly with someone if that someone is not there.
Remember a Scrum team is not a collection of individuals who happen to be working on the same project. A Scrum team is a group of people working literally together on something. Like an old-fashioned barn raising where everyone is lifting the roof of the barn up at the same time. You won’t get the roof raised if one person shows up from 9-10, then two more come from 10-noon, then another 3 come from 1-4. You need the whole crew there at the same time to lift together.
Now some teams will set “core hours”, say from 10-3, when everyone is required to be there and meetings can be scheduled (and why we are talking about meetings for a Scrum team that are together all the time is a mystery to me).
What this really means is that this team has introduced inefficiency and the probability of work blockages the other 4 working hours of the day. So this team has cut their effective work time in half. And what do they gain?
Well, this person has to drop their kids at school, and that one has to pick them up after school, and the train schedule means someone else will be late, and ….
What you are saying is that it is more important to optimize the individual.
But Scrum and Agile teach that you get the greatest gains and benefits by optimizing the team. Oh, and a lot of other studies show the same thing. Optimizing the individual is sub-optimal.
You have to all work the same hours. People in most other industries make it work, when they really have no choice of their work schedule. A Scrum Team can do it as well.
It’s that important.
Geri