Articles and videos on creating and managing cross-functional Scrum teams: scrum master, product owner and development team.
Scrum teams usually develop iteratively new product features. In larger project, teams can also be organized around layers or components of the product. In this article, Mukesh Chaudhary discusses how to manage the complexity with Scrum component teams and integration of their deliverables to make up a feature.
In this article, Steve Hunton explains that, even if people expect that the shift to Agile practices includes a wholesale shift of roles,, the ScrumMaster does not play the part of the traditional project manager. He thinks that the project manager role is more filled by the product owner. The project manager is a decision maker accountable to the business for accomplishing the project objectives. The ScrumMaster is a coach and facilitator that sits between the project and the customer. He isn’t responsible for the project or managing the development team. If you have questions about the product, then you should ask it to the product owner. He concludes that if the ScrumMaster is making decisions about a product, then Scrum has not been properly implemented and there’s going to be confusion and conflict about who does and owns what.
Learn how to achieve multiple team collaboration in large scale software development projects. Self-organization is a key concept for all Lean-Agile methods. However, as projects expand across the enterprise and, more specifically, cut across multiple teams, teams clearly can’t just organize in any way they want to. A blend of top-down direction with bottom-up self organization is needed. Lean provides the insights necessary for teams to self-organize within the context of the value stream within which the teams work. A top-down perspective, created by driving from business value, can provide insights on how teams must organize and work together.
The average Scrum team delivered a 35% improvement in velocity at Yahoo [1] where teams properly coached delivered 300-400% improvements. The best Scrum Master at MySpace peaked at 267% of initial velocity after 12 weeks and averaged 168% increase in velocity over 12 Sprints. Most teams were less successful.
Project charter discussions and documentation focuses traditionally on project scope and the goals and objectives for the project. To address specificity of Agile project, the author of this article has recently created and successfully utilized an Agile Development Team Charter. It differs from usual project charter as it focuses more on the ‘how’ of the project.
We would like solutions delivered fast without compromising quality, user experience, implicit requirements and non-functional aspects such as scalability and performance. This would have been easier, if we had all the time in the universe. Doing this in a sustainable manner becomes a huge challenge for teams as there are multiple competing forces at play and because software development is very complex.
This article discusses the challenges that Agile brings to the appraisal process. Agile methodology focuses on team performance more than on the individual. The objectives of the team aren’t easily broken down by individual; one cannot appraise the individual on the basis of team performance. This article presents a workable solution for appraising Scrum team members. This will address problems raised while remaining within the Agile framework and philosophy. If a team is self-organizing, per the Agile framework, we can empower that team to raise itself to a “self-appraising team.”
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