It is impractical to send them to a Scrum Training, put them in a new Scrum Team, and then anticipate general awesomeness to follow. Scrum focuses on self-organizing teams that regularly produce usable software.
Simply grouping people won’t turn them into a team or enable self-organization. Collaboration, psychological safety, and utilizing each other’s skills are the three main components of teamwork.
Self-organizing, cross-functional, and extremely effective teams collaborate in Scrum to produce worthwhile, releasable product increments. Scrum provides a structure that encourages teams to learn via experimentation, collaboration, and discovery.
The Great Scrum Team is made up of a Product Owner who maximizes value, a Scrum Master certification who facilitates ongoing improvement, and a Development Team who is committed to delivering high-quality product increments. In the universal agile article you will see 6 ways to start a scrum team.
Excellent Developmental Team:
Seeks to be technically excellent.
Extreme Programming is an inspiration to great development teams. Planning, designing, coding, and testing-related practices and guidelines are provided by XP.
Utilizes spike solutions.
A spike is a brief, time-limited activity used to identify the work required to complete a substantial, ambiguous task. Spike experiments are used by Great Development Teams to address complex technical, architectural, or design issues.
Teams up to revise the product backlog.
Backlog optimization is seen as a collective endeavor by Great Development Teams. They are aware that a strong Product Backlog is a cornerstone of a development pace that can be sustained and the creation of excellent products. The team as a whole is in charge of improving the product backlog, even though the Product Owner is ultimately liable for it.
Share experiences.
Great Development Teams exchange experiences with one another. This might occur within the company, but conferences and seminars are also excellent venues for knowledge sharing. Of course, documenting and disseminating your lessons learned is also very much appreciated. And yes, for the keen readers, this is precisely the same as for the Product Owner.
Here are 6 ways to start a scrum team with a huge, established product:
1. Plan ahead for the Kickstart
The last two hours of a Friday afternoon are not the time for a Kickstart. It is at this point that a team’s foundation is laid. For a Kickstart, you should usually set aside two or three days. The first day is primarily devoted to Scrum Training to review the Scrum principles and how to apply Scrum to the team’s situation.
Team building is the focus of the second day. The creation of a team manifest is the main goal of the afternoon. This facilitates the conversations and disputes that make up the “storming phase.” On the third day, a Product Backlog is created, and the first sprint is launched.
Three days dedicated to a Kickstart is a demanding and significant investment. However, it does convey a key message: We are taking this seriously and taking our time to work as a team. Every single time, teams that invest this much time in getting started to experience considerably smoother travel and go to the performance phase much faster.
2. Half the battle is getting to know one another.
It makes no difference if the individuals are acquainted with one another for the first time or have previously collaborated. During the first session, take some time to get to know one another as a team. Breaking the ice and forcing people out of their comfort zones is the key in this situation.
Additionally, it makes people feel less constrained for the duration of the remaining sessions. To make it non-threatening for individuals to engage, make sure to guide these exercises in a lighthearted, enjoyable manner.
These workouts may seem a little odd at first, but that’s okay. It’s preferable to get beyond the awkwardness immediately rather than have participants feel hesitant to participate.
3. Teach Scrum
A Scrum Team shouldn’t consist of only two people who have read a book about Scrum or taken a course, while the other members are clueless. Due to Scrum’s current level of popularity, there are numerous misunderstandings and extremely varying perceptions of what it is and isn’t.
4.Make a team contract
Clarity-building is beneficial when first starting Scrum. How are we going to collaborate as a team? Who is accountable for what? When are the Scrum Events? For teams that are just getting started, it’s critical to have clarity around roles and responsibilities (forming & storming). Members must be aware of their responsibilities because the team does not yet provide a completely safe environment.
5.Choose a team name.
Teams begin creating an identity during the norming phase. The conventions, attitudes, and ideas that guide how people wish to collaborate make up this identity. Asking teams to come up with a name for their team during the Kickstart is a relatively straightforward but effective exercise.
Typically, you should ask pairs to think of as many good names as they can, and then let the team vote on which one they believe is best. Choosing a name is usually helpful for promoting a team’s identity, but it works much better when there are other teams nearby. Teams begin to take ownership of their names.
This naming exercise is effective because it appeals to what social and organizational psychologists refer to as “mere group membership.” Give people something small to identify with, and they will more readily join a group. especially when nearby teams are on the same field.
6.Promote the Kickstart by involving management.
Complexity on both the internal and external levels will be managed by a scrum team. Requesting management’s attendance to support the process when launching a new Scrum Team is helpful. It is possible to do this at the beginning, end, or even throughout the Kickoff.
Telling a team that you support them is different from actively seeking their input and asking how you can best assist them. Additionally, make sure that those coming to show support are aware of what Scrum is and what will occur. If not, you run the risk of sending confusing signals.
Conclusion
The new Scrum Team launch is no easy task. Even though there will undoubtedly be time and financial investment, a strong Kickstart will hasten the process by which a Scrum Team becomes Awesome.
