A Scrum Master notices that Sprint Planning for the firmware team keeps running long and drifting into detailed task estimation that could happen later. What is the Scrum Master's responsibility in this situation, according to the Scrum Guide?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
A Scrum Master watching Sprint Planning drift is like a referee watching the clock — the job is to protect the timebox, not to referee every technical decision inside it. The Scrum Master is accountable for making sure the event actually happens, stays inside its timebox, and stays useful, coaching the team to keep from over-planning. What gets decided about scope and approach still belongs to the Scrum Team itself.
Full Explanation
The Scrum Guide gives the Scrum Master accountability for establishing Scrum as defined and for the Scrum Team's effectiveness, which includes ensuring that all Scrum events take place, are positive, productive, and kept within the timebox. If Sprint Planning is drifting into detailed estimation better suited to later in the Sprint, the Scrum Master's job is to notice that and coach the team back toward the event's actual purpose, not to let it run over or to take over the content decisions. Extending the timebox until estimation finishes treats a facilitation problem as a scheduling problem, and undermines the discipline timeboxing exists to enforce. Taking over facilitation and personally deciding scope confuses coaching the process with making the Scrum Team's decisions for them - scope selection belongs to the Developers and Product Owner together. Cancelling the event and blaming refinement overreacts to a facilitation issue with an event-level decision the Scrum Master doesn't have unilateral authority to make, and skips the simpler fix of steering the conversation back on track in the room. Caveat: a Scrum Master noticing a recurring pattern of Sprint Planning running long might also raise it as a signal to improve Product Backlog refinement between Sprints, which is a separate, ongoing activity. Operational check: if Sprint Planning is drifting, the Scrum Master should name the drift out loud and redirect to the current topic rather than silently letting the clock run.