How To Form Your Agile Scrum Teams Effectively

 

In this blog, we attempt to answer the below key questions related to forming scrum teams, the benefits of which still eludes many teams and organizations in an Agile setting.

• While transitioning or adopting Agile with Scrum, how do we form scrum teams ?

• Are there any team forming models available ?

• What factors to consider while forming Scrum teams from existing teams ?

• How do we re-assign roles to the newly formed Scrum teams ?

• Role of People’s Team (Human Resources or Org Development) in the new Agile team structure with Scrum

• Key Takeaways from this blog

First , let us understand what’s the basic definition of a scrum team as mentioned in Scrum guide. The guide which is co-authored by Scrum © founder Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber, says that the fundamental unit of Scrum is a small team of people, which is simply called Scrum Team. The team has three primary roles – Scrum Master, Product Owner and Developers. It’s a cohesive unit of professionals who are working together to achieve the common goal – the product goal.

 The Scrum guide further describes the team, roles and responsibilities in more detail, and we won’t cover those in this blog. Would expect the blog readers to read the Scrum guide and the respective section related to Scrum Team and the three scrum roles.

 When an organization with an existing team setup decides to adopt or transition to Agile Scrum, then re-aligning its development teams along the lines of Scrum is one of the key priorities. Rather than going about dismantling the existing teams, the leaders have to carve out a transition plan , preferably in phases where the existing teams are dismantled and aligned with the new agile scrum team structures. This blog will cover only key aspects of forming teams from an existing setup. Creating Agile team structure as part of an overarching vision of creating an Agile organization is out of the scope of this blog, the topic is too large to fit in here.

Staffing Key Scrum Roles – Setting the Context

There are two keys to project success, regardless of the project management approach: doing the right thing, and doing the thing right. You must ‘do the right thing,’ or deliver the output that meets the customer’s needs. The business leaders, at whatever level, are responsible for identifying the ‘right thing,’ or the key deliverables that will enable the business to achieve its business goals. The ‘right thing’ can range from new features for an existing product that make it appealing to a larger customer base to automating an internal process that saves the business money. Doing the right thing is key, for regardless of how well you can execute, creating software that doesn’t satisfy the customer’s needs results in wasted time and money for no tangible benefit.

 In Scrum, the Product Owner is responsible for ‘doing the right thing,’ while the Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring that Scrum team members ‘do the thing right.’ The separation and clear delineation of roles and responsibilities is a very powerful attribute of Scrum.

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