5 not-so-Agile practices with SCRUM

July 21st, 2008

I have come across several articles on the best practices for Agile/SCRUM.

I read this somewhere and really liked it:
There is not and never will be a list of “Scrum Best Practices” because team and project context trump all other considerations.

Here are 5 practices that may be considered as “not-so-agile” by purists. But, making the following changes to our Agile/SCRUM process actually made us a very effective Agile Organization..!

    Dedicated Testers & Writer on the SCRUM Team:
    This could be against the “No specialization” or “No fixed Roles” Agile principle.
    Minispecs:
    This could be against “use the working code as documentation”. We use MiniSpecs very effectively to document key requirements and design/implementation decisions in a concise manner.
    Our SCRUM Master is our Sr. Director/Manager:
    This is self-explanatory. Our Manager is actually a certified SCRUM Master with two decades of development experience. He demonstrates great balance.
    Team members shared across teams:
    We have a UI specialist and an Architect/Developer shared across 2 teams. I guess it might make sense to share the UI specialist. The Architect/Developer shared across teams has helped us immensely improve communication and to effectively sort out integration issues across the products in our Product Suite.
    Multiple backlogs for the same product suite:
    Okay. This one might be up for debate. Our Product suite consists of at least 5 products that have their own SCRUM Teams. There is also a Product Owner with individual Product backlog for each of these products. Also, there is a common backlog for infrastructure/common functionality.

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How SCRUM/Agile affects typical roles in Software Development

July 20th, 2008

I have been using SCRUM and XP principles/practices since early 2003 for various software projects.

Here is my take on how SCRUM/Agile software development has affected the typical roles in Software development for the Organizations adopting SCRUM/Agile.

Management, Leadership:

  • Requires management to delegate decision-making authority to the Scrum team, even allowing them to fail if necessary
  • SCRUM highlights the inefficiencies and critical constraints imposed all along the software delivery chain
  • No specialization in terms of skillset for the team members
  • Scrum requires constant monitoring both quantitatively and qualitatively
  • Lower Risks: At most you lose a Sprint’s work

    • Customers/Clients:

  • Real involvement - Sprint Demos/Reviews at the end of every Sprint
  • Faster and incremental deliveries
  • Requirements are barely sufficient - SCRUM provides a way to adapt and continually improve.

    • Product Owners:

  • Drive the overall vision of the product
  • Exclusively manage the Product backlog and stakeholders expectations
  • Sign-off on Sprint deliveries/results
  • Fully integrated in to and dedicated to the team

    • SCRUM Team/Developers:

  • Intensity: agile development is intense for developers
  • Team composition: Should consist of some senior developers
  • Must incorporate XP practices like Continuous Integration, TDD, Incremental Design, etc.
  • Co-Location for better communication/visibility

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