Scrum Product Development: Team Work Makes the Dream Work

Team interactions often determine the success of a company. Fowler acknowledges the role of team interactions in the larger corporate structure: "The Scrum Framework is built on an extensive theoretical base that ranges from systems analytics to team interactions and human behavior. Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland put the pieces together during the 1990s, but its theoretical roots go back to at least the 1980s and, arguably, back to the 1950s as well" (Fowler, 2019). He suggests an extensive theoretical base supports the Scrum Framework in improving team interactions and modifying human behavior.

Agile Methodology implements an iterative, incremental approach to software development. Companies often create Scrum teams as an implementation of Agile Methodology. A company contains multiple positions and departments. A scrum team is an isolated system from the rest of the company. Orders come from the company roles above (Bloomenthal, 2023, p. 1).

Figure 1
Corporate Company Structure

By Olivia Salvini, 2023, a simple diagram to illustrate that corporate structures exist above, and parallel to, Scrum teams.

A company often runs multiple Scrum Teams. A scrum team organizes into three supportive, well-defined roles: Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Development Team. The product owner expresses to the Scrum Master all of the features that will be built for a product by listing them in the Product backlog. Work occurs in 1 to 4-week Sprints representing a group of tasks that will deliver a meaningful project deliverable. Working short sprints allows teams to focus on building the deliverable that needs to be presented to the customer right now. Software development teams must remain flexible and perform frequent reassessments to deliver the customer's desired product every Sprint. It is reasonable to assume that a client's priorities change over time. With frequent reassessment, changes to large projects prove easier to incorporate (ForrestKnight, 2019).

In a Sprint planning event, the Scrum Master receives a Product backlog from the Product Owner and creates the Sprint Backlog that defines the features that will be built in each Sprint, breaks the features into tasks, and assigns tasks to the development team. He is responsible for communicating task responsibilities to the development team and ensuring the team meets deadlines. The Development Team implements the tasks from the Scrum Master. The Scrum Master leads short daily meetings called daily stand-ups where teams meet for up to 15 minutes daily to review where they are in their development process and ask for help where help is needed. The Scrum Master reassigns work when necessary and encourages the team to stay on task (Scrum Inc., 2019).

A Sprint Retrospective is vital for the software development team to give feedback to the Scrum Master and the Product Owner about the experiences over the last Sprint. That information is implemented in upcoming Sprints to create a more productive work environment (Scrum Inc., 2019).

Software developers prove to be the most innovative, intelligent people I have ever had the pleasure of working with. It is crucial to assist software developers in organizing work to allow them to focus on creating quality software that changes the world.

References:

Bloomenthal, A. (2023). What is the C Suite?: Meaning and Positions Defined. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/c-suite.asp

ForrestKnight. (2019, November 20). An Overview of Agile Development [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLvBK9stdoM

Fowler, F.M. (2019). Scrum Theory. In: Navigating Hybrid Scrum Environments. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4164-6_2

Salvini, O. (2023, May 15). Corporate Company Structure [Figure]. Sacramento, California, United States.

Scrum Inc. (2019, May 3). Intro to the Scrum Framework [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiEcq9uvi4Y

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