Scrum and High Performance teams

In the field of organization behavior, the notion of the high-performing team has been discussed. Many of today’s Customers need rapidly adapting development services. High-performing teams are the key to providing that service. A mature high-performing team is a united unit, not merely a throng of individuals. While such teams usually emerge by chance; a high-performing team can also be deliberately molded with an understanding of team member requirements in mind. Scrum framework which brings out the truly necessary essentials, can help with achieving this. While Scrum Framework increases the chances of such a team forming, it is not a necessary or sufficient condition for high-performing teams.
Certain enablers can herald formation of high-performing teams: Some of them come in the form of Human resource practices for the organization. However, they regularly get over-complicated or misapplied. Scrum team is often encumbered with overwhelming info, which cripples the ability to think clearly. The Scrum Core team members become burdened by esoteric language, process, principles or practices that clutter their minds and focus. Great Scrum Masters don’t strictly enforce working hours. What they do enforce is presence on the Daily Standups- everyone on a given team has to be there and there are penalties for being late. Daily Standups” instil discipline by requiring a fifteen-minute daily meeting.
Classic environmental enablers in Scrum include collocated teams, team rooms/war rooms, visible charts, and white boards. By being responsible for this environment, a great Scrum Master can help in creating high-performing teams that effectively address business’ needs. The product backlog is A Great Scrum Master’s best source of reality to give feedback as to whether they are making the right decisions and having the right conversations. With conversations a Great Scrum Masters can help the Scrum Team detect if understanding is there. Scrum advocates that the teams should have the freedom to decide how they will deliver the User Stories they committed to during the sprint planning.
High performing teams collaborate by visibility. With visible product backlog or a Scrumboard, Stakeholders see where effort is being applied. When a Product Owner can see where to apply effort, the Scrum Team members work together and do not flounder. In projects, much of the work is not easily visible and therefore self-organization is necessary. With visible work efforts Great Scrum Masters improve the odds that each conversation will be the right one and make reporting on team progress easy.
The Product Owner also has to balance between discipline and freedom, monitoring and separating what is crucial from what is incidental and hence can be delegated to the team. Great Product Owners maintain a disciplined process but allow freedom, both in choice of tools, rules, and in adding project-specific guidelines to the organization’s universal standards. Conversation can be setup by formal or informal processes language agreements, team location, and more. High-performing teams are basic assets that individuals, businesses, and organizations need to help them thrive. This approach; strictly enforces a few key things; be relaxed on others gives the discipline Scrum needs but allows the freedom Scrum members crave. Achieving this balance should be part of good practice on any Scrum team.

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Roadblocks in implementing Agile

Even if it’s easier to implement Agile, there are few roadblocks which make it difficult to implement:

Inadequacy of Agile knowledge:

The first challenge will be to find experts who can help us understand Agile better. If we are lucky enough, we’ll have some level of agile experience within our organisation. However, if that’s not the case, it would be really difficult to find an expert.

Large project teams:

As the team size increases, Agile is compromised at different levels. Different propositions such as direct communication and generic understanding require extra effort to maintain their efficiency as a team expands. Bigger teams require additional investment to make certain that the learning is shared constantly across all groups. Scrum teams often use the term scrum of scrums, which means a spokesperson from each Scrum team attends a master Scrum meeting to share their ideas with the other teams. A small team always have a better communication. As the teams become larger than 15, it becomes more of a formal communication which slows the team.

Resistance to change:

It’s very difficult to implement a new process when an organisation already has set and established procedure. If the organizational policies don’t make sense for agile implementation, the organizations won’t be interested in implementing it within their company.

Other tasks assignment:

It also happens at times that when few of the team members from the team are pulled out for a different assignment and it becomes difficult for the rest of the team members to work on the project they were working before. Also, the team members can’t focus properly if their projects are changed frequently.

Unfamiliarity with techniques:

External departments are not quite familiar with the agile techniques and its implementation. So, the scrum team members need to provide proper training so as to make them familiar with agile.

Tactical issues:

The scrum team needs a range of simulation software so that it can test the user interface and code. The need additional hardware or software to implement agile. This acts as a roadblock if the additional hardware or software is not available or if the organization doesn’t allow usage of additional hardware or software.

 An underdeveloped or one-time team:

If our team will work together for only one project, they’re usually provided a plan-driven approach except for if they have previous experience in agile. So, if the teams have to work through multiple projects or releases, they need to be trained properly on agile techniques as and when it’s required. Otherwise it will be really difficult for them to migrate to a full agile methodology.

If these roadblocks can be overcome, agile implementation will be really helpful for any organization and will provide many benefits like increase in value, perceptibility, and flexibility.

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