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The Scrum Team performs the project work conducted during a Sprint on an Agile/Scrum project.
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Quick reference
Sprint – Scrum Team
The Scrum Team performs the project work conducted during a Sprint on an Agile/Scrum project.
When to Use Sprint –Scrum Teams
The Scrum Team for a Sprint must be formed prior to the start of the Sprint. The team members should be 100% dedicated to the Agile/Scrum project for the duration of the Sprint, so they need to have advance notice to clear their schedule.
Instructions
A major difference between Agile/Scrum projects and traditional projects is the makeup and management of the project team members. Some of the differences are:
- Team members are 100% dedicated to the project for the duration of the Sprint. Team members are not matrixed across multiple projects simultaneously.
- Teams work collaboratively. They are not assigned to specific tasks, rather they work together to make certain as many tasks as possible are completed.
- Teams are self-organizing. There is no one assigned to the project leader role or any other specific team leadership role. Rather, the teams decide daily how best to organize to complete the work and leadership is shared among team members.
- Many individuals will require training in team facilitation, team decision-making, and giving and receiving feedback from peers.
- Teams are autonomous, adaptive, and accountable.
- Teams are normally co-located in a common workspace. At a minimum, they meet together daily at the Scrum meeting.
These are key roles in an Agile/Scrum project:
- Product Owner: represents the business and stakeholder needs for the team. This individual consolidates the Story Cards and prioritizes them.
- Scrum Master: facilitates the Agile/Scrum process including maintaining the Scrum Board and Burn Down Chart. In addition, this individual works to remove any roadblocks or impediments that the team faces.
- Scrum Team member: Plan and execute the work of the Sprint, including estimating what Stories can be completed, doing the tasks, and ensuring the Demo Criteria on the Stories is met.
- Senior Management/Business Team: Coordinate with the Product Owner to define needs and deliverables. At the invitation of the Product Owner they can also participate in the Sprint Demo.
Hints and Tips
- Membership on a Scrum Team is not for everyone. Team members must be able to work autonomously and determine the best way to do the stories that they have selected. No one tells them what to do, they volunteer for the work. If their work is late or poor quality it is quickly exposed in front of the whole team. Some people love the autonomy and accountability – some hate it.
- 00:04 Hello, I'm Ray Sheen.
- 00:06 The work of the Sprint is done by the scrum team.
- 00:09 Let's take a closer look at how this team operates.
- 00:12 One key difference from traditional project management,
- 00:15 is that the team does not have set roles or titles.
- 00:18 Rather it is a collaborative group that works together, sharing leadership, and
- 00:22 decision making.
- 00:24 This trait of a collaborative team is common among the Agile methodologies, but
- 00:28 it is different from most traditional project management methodologies.
- 00:32 For that reason, the team members often need training.
- 00:35 Of course they need training in the methodology to
- 00:37 unlearn habits that develop from traditional projects.
- 00:41 In addition, they need training in team leadership.
- 00:44 Scrum team members shared the leadership of the team among themselves.
- 00:47 So everyone needs to be comfortable with team facilitation, team decision making,
- 00:52 communicating with team members, and giving and receiving feedback with peers.
- 00:56 These are not naturally acquired skills in most technical schools or organizations.
- 01:01 But they are very important to the success of an Agile/Scrum project.
- 01:04 Don't scrimp on training.
- 01:06 Another aspect on the collaborative nature of the teaching
- 01:09 is that the team is normally co-located.
- 01:11 Physical co-location in a common workplace is best to encourage natural collaboration
- 01:16 and to make it easier to conduct the daily scrum meetings.
- 01:19 However I have used virtual co-location on several occasions.
- 01:22 When in that mode I find it best to schedule a daily WebEx or
- 01:26 video conference to foster the collaboration.
- 01:29 If working in the virtual world, also create an online workspace,
- 01:33 where everyone on the team can share files.
- 01:36 One of the ways an Agile/Scrum project is very different from a traditional project
- 01:40 is the leadership roles within the project.
- 01:42 Let's look at these.
- 01:44 First is the product owner.
- 01:45 In my opinion, this is the most difficult role on any Agile/Scrum project.
- 01:49 This individual is responsible for interacting with all the stakeholders
- 01:53 to determine their needs and create the story cards for the project.
- 01:57 Including the demo criteria for each story.
- 01:59 They write the stories, prioritize the product backlog, and
- 02:02 interface with the scrum team to answer any questions about any of the stories.
- 02:07 We'll talk more about the role on a session dedicated to product owner.
- 02:11 Next is the scrum master.
- 02:13 Let me first clear up a possible misconception.
- 02:16 The scrum master is not a master of anything on the project.
- 02:19 Their roles is to be facilitative the team and to keep the project running smoothly.
- 02:24 Therefore, they take care of maintaining the Scrum board and burn down chart.
- 02:28 Another important responsibility is to remove roadblocks and
- 02:31 impediments that the scrum team identifies.
- 02:33 We have a session coming up that is dedicated to this role also.
- 02:37 The primary role in an Agile/Scrum project is that of Scrum Team Member.
- 02:42 These are the people who both plan and do the work.
- 02:45 They estimate the effort required to complete each story
- 02:48 which leads to the size of the Sprint backlog.
- 02:51 They then determine how to best organize themselves to accomplish the work
- 02:54 in the priority order which was set up by the product owner.
- 02:58 Every day,
- 02:58 they assess their progress and decide how best to accomplish the work before them.
- 03:03 They also participate in the Sprint demo,
- 03:04 where they demonstrate the results of the work they have accomplished.
- 03:08 The group that hasn't been mentioned yet is senior management in the business team.
- 03:12 Their primary point of interaction is the product owner.
- 03:15 The Scrum Master may interact with them at the beginning of the overall project, or
- 03:19 if there's a roadblock that he or she needs to help with.
- 03:22 The only time they interact with the team is at the Sprint demo, and
- 03:26 then only if invited by the product owner to participate.
- 03:30 Let me go a little deeper into the idea of a self organizing team.
- 03:33 This concept is quite novel for some country and business cultures.
- 03:36 The first attribute to point out is that there is no assigned manager or leader.
- 03:41 No one is the boss.
- 03:42 For some people in organizations, this is very disconcerting.
- 03:46 They want to have a single person that they can hold accountable, and
- 03:49 that individual does not exist in an Agile/Scrum project.
- 03:53 Team assignments and team decisions should made by the team and
- 03:55 whatever fashion, the team determines.
- 03:58 Another characteristic is that the team creates its own plan for
- 04:01 how to do the work.
- 04:03 They apply their expertise when planning, but they aren't directed by someone who is
- 04:07 not on the team, as to how they have to do the work.
- 04:10 Now they still have to comply with codes and standards, this is not a license for
- 04:14 chaos, but if they find that what works best for
- 04:17 them is to approach a portion of the project in a non-traditional manner.
- 04:21 They are free to make that decision.
- 04:23 Along with that freedom, is the freedom to change the plan whenever they want.
- 04:27 The plan is not fixed to a baseline that is controlled by an independent group.
- 04:31 Rather, the team sets the plan and they can change it.
- 04:34 That does not mean they can change the project goal or
- 04:37 the priority list of the Sprint backlog.
- 04:40 But they can change how they intend to complete
- 04:43 the stories in the Sprint backlog.
- 04:46 We can summarize this team environment with the terms autonomous, adaptive, and
- 04:50 accountable.
- 04:51 It is an autonomous team, meaning it does not need
- 04:53 permission from anyone else to decide how to accomplish their work.
- 04:57 It is an adaptive team, meaning that it can quickly react to success and
- 05:01 failure on tasks, changing the plan for how to continue forward.
- 05:05 It is an accountable team, meaning that the team is accountable for
- 05:08 accomplishing the stories and must demonstrate the results
- 05:11 to the product owner and their designees at the Sprint demo.
- 05:15 There is no trust me on these projects.
- 05:18 Rather the Scrum team must prove the results work.
- 05:21 There is one other element of accountability that is worth mentioning.
- 05:24 Some people thrive in this type of work environment, and others can't handle it.
- 05:29 Every day at the scrum meeting,
- 05:31 each individual must acknowledge what they finished during the previous day.
- 05:35 If someone is not accomplishing anything,
- 05:37 that will quickly be apparent to the whole team.
- 05:39 And by the same token, if someone is making tremendous progress,
- 05:43 that will be evident also.
- 05:45 So, in addition to team accountability, there is personal accountability.
- 05:50 A smoothly operating Scrum Team is great fun to work with.
- 05:55 It's dynamic, exciting, and much is accomplished.
- 05:59 Best of all the project success is clearly a team success.
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