The Agile/Scrum Team
- Lana Bonta
- Aug 14, 2020
- 3 min read
It may seem simple to create a scrum team. It really isn’t as simple as it seems on the surface. Scrum teams need to be created understanding specific concepts that make them unique, self-organizing, cross-functional, and capable of delivering high value products.
Scrum teams are horizontal, meaning there is no one in charge. Everyone works together; they collaborate to innovate and achieve the best results. 1 This lack of hierarchy encourages healthy communication within the team.
So what does a Scrum Team look like?
A scrum team has between five and nine members; one product owner, one scrum master, and three to seven software developers. Each of these roles has a different purpose, but none of them has authority over any of the others.
The Product Owner- This is the liaison between the customer, the company, and the development team. This is the person responsible for the product vision. 2
The Scrum Master – Often referred to as “the coach,” this person helps to keep the development team on task and remove impediments that may be blocking their progress. 3
The Development Team – They are the “heart” of the scrum team. 3 The development team consists of “the typical functional roles required to complete the project. In software development, that means architects, testers, developers, and designers.” 2
Bringing all of these components together properly is the key to getting the most out of Agile development. Where many companies go terribly wrong is they attempt to insert a hierarchy into the Agile process. This will upset the natural balance, create obstacles, and negatively affect productivity. 4 To prevent this from happening, Dominique Barton suggests eliminating titles all together. 1 Personally, I think that people, as a whole, are smart enough to comprehend the concept of horizontal management without the extreme measure of eliminating titles, but perhaps I’m just overly optimistic.
Another place many companies go terribly wrong is by not including all of the components necessary in team creation. What do I mean by that? Scrum Alliance tells us that we need “architects, testers, developers, and designers” on our team, yet many companies will only hire a few testers and UX designers, then set them aside on separate teams to do the work for all of the teams. This causes a lot of problems:
With so few testers and designers, changes and tests have to queue up causing long delays.
If UX makes changes at the end of an iteration, some of those changes could “break” the build forcing code changes and delays.
Having UX and testers as outside resources, they are not considered part of the team, so other team members may have issues creating rapport.
By ensuring that a Scrum team has all of its necessary components, including UX designers and QA testers, a company can ensure that the team will work at maximum efficiency. Eliminating the hierarchy within the team to allow for open and honest communication and collaboration ensures that the team will continue innovating and producing quality products efficiently.
What is the take away?
Most of the changes companies make to Scrum teams is to save money. What these companies don’t understand is that they are actually costing themselves money. The large cost of pushing back release dates or cancelling product releases entirely because of the poor decision to create incomplete Scrum teams can be debilitating for a company. The reasonable cost of ensuring Scrum teams are created properly can prevent these catastrophes from happening.
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