Advice on handling ad-hoc asks amidst the regular work
You're focused on a task, it's logged in Jira with full details and you're on track.
An ad-hoc ask comes up and you're expected to leave everything and entertain it as it the world would fall apart otherwise. If it's from a colleague or someone not much senior, they expect you to go easy and take your time but if it's from someone way up, your manager or team seniors would annoy you to entertain it - kind of "I'm the commander and I know what should you do first". This is super irritating.
Worst part is these asks rarely get logged in Jira but they disturb you, take up your focus meant for your sprint items and kill your overall interest in the job as a whole. You never get to know what the larger background was so you never develop domain knowledge either.
Scrum masters don't know where your 2 hours of the day went.Mine even says a task worth less than half story points can be skipped on the board. How do I account for my time then?
Posted Jan 15, 2026, 5:13 AM UTC