In large companies, we often find people with quite specialized knowledge who are resources shared across the company. The company does not want to dedicate these people to one team. But scrum teams are co-located and dedicated. Everyone is on the team all the time to avoid the bottlenecks that occur when someone is not available when needed.
If the person has knowledge needed by the Scrum Team, and is really that much in demand throughout the company, there is a large risk that the specialist is not available when needed. Which is why we really wanted the person on the team to begin with – so that the knowledge is available to the team when needed.
What to do?
In the long term, what you really want to do is pair someone with the specialist to learn what the specialist knows. When the knowledge transfer has happened, find 2 more people to pair with the original specialist and the new specialist. Do this as much as you need to share the knowledge broadly. Then the specialist ceases to be a bottleneck.
In the short term, try as much as possible to organize your work to depend as little as possible on the specialist. Perhaps you can put all the work that needs the specialist into one iteration and have the specialist dedicated to your team for just that one iteration.
If you need regular time with the specialist over many iterations, try scheduling a fixed time every week. Get this on the specialist’s calendar as soon as you know the specialist will be needed, well in advance of when you really need the specialist’s time.
If the specialist is expected to produce a deliverable, do not let them do it!! Rather, pair the specialist with someone else on your team who actually does the work while the specialist assists. This increases the knowledge in your team and makes you less dependent on the specialist over time.
No matter what suggestion you think is interesting in this article or other ideas you find, be sure to COMMUNICATE and COLLABORATE with management and the specialist. Communication and collaboration are foundational to Scrum. These are the most important things we do.
Geri