Teams are core to agile practices and a ScrumMaster plays a critical role in optimizing team execution. One of the common impediments that interfers with this is the team work area or lack thereof. Without a common workarea it is very difficult to really understand what is going on with a team. The daily standups are a very inadequate way of tracking team progress. So much more is learned when you hear the intra-team discussions. It is these informal times expose what is really going one with a team.

We as ScrumMaster need to keep in continuous touch with the team. It is imperative that we sit with our teams as much as possible. This is the only effective way you can be an effective gate keeper.

Teams are powerful entities. They are much more powerful then just a group of individuals. This in itself can be a major deterrent in changing the culture. Once a team is formed, stays together for six or more months and becomes self-organizing it can become very influential.

It is very difficult for managers to ignore the requests of the team especially when it is very productive and working toward the corporate goals. It is interesting that teams usually request changes that will make them more productive. These changes such as a team work area, change in performance review procedures, setting goals and self-governance are actually better for the company.

But all of this runs contrary to most companies management hierarchy. How does one manage a self-organized work team? You don’t!  Good teams need to be guided to where they should be going. The manager needs to make sure they do not go off track and provide the best environment for the team to excel. This leadership is very important for a team to function at optimal levels.

Does a company really believe that is team is more productive than individual contributors? Take a look at the how a company does performance reviews and compensation.

Most performance reviews focus on how the individual performed in the last year. After the review the individual is informed as to what their new compensation with be. Very little is considered about the team they are working on. The following are some of the issues this causes for a team:

1. The individual’s performance is more important than the team’s performance.
2. Individuals feel reluctant to share their knowledge with the team.
3. The team is not rewarded for performing well.

In most companies the culture is based on the individual not the team. So the individual is concerned that they will not receive the appropriate recognition if contributing to the success of a team.

Agile requires a change in our mindset in regards to quality. We all have given lip service to quality but are we really ready to make a commitment to quality. As usual Agile concepts are simple but hard to implement.

Quality starts first of all with the backlog. The customer’s highest priority user story is what is developed first. A quality product must first meet the customer’s expectation of what is important.

We will make the assumption that we have chosen the top priority user stories for a  sprint. How do we decide when we have finished the user story and it is ready to presented to the “world”.

There are three major areas of acceptance:

1.       Code quality

2.       Functionality

3.       Presentation (usability)

1. Code quality

a)      Is the design reasonable?

b)      Is the user story testable?

c)       Is the code well written?

d)      Have we followed a consistent data model?

e)      Are we following the best practices?

2. Functionality

a)      Is the code unit tested?

b)      Is the test data available?

c)       Have we worked on creating test fixtures?

d)      Does it meet the data requirements?

e)      Does it meet the logic requirements?

f)       Have we automated our testing?

3. Presentation (usability)

a)      Is the layout correct?

b)      Are all of the UI assets in place?

c)       Are all of the interaction components working properly?

d)      Is the data displayed correctly?

e)      Are the screens being displayed in the correct order?

f)       Is there valid wording all text fields?

Who is responsible for “signing” off on these acceptance criteria:

1.       Product Owner

2.       Quality assurance developer

3.       User interface designer

4.       The team

We all work together as a team to build the unit tests, automation tests and making sure the presentation in correct. The product owner creates high level acceptance tests. The quality assurance developer assures  the story in testable and creates the function test tasks. The software engineers work with the QA developers when creating the unit tests and automation tests. All during the process the team is working together to make sure the user story is acceptable at all levels.

We should not wait until the end of the sprint to have the quality assurance developers begin their testing. Once a section of code has been develop the QA developer should be consulted to make sure software engineers are meeting the requirements. Once a UI component is finished the user interface designer should be consulted to make sure it meets the requirements.

When all of these acceptance criteria are meet the story is done. It is very important the team does not over commit to the number of user stories that can be completed in the sprint.

The goal is a quality product that we are proud of and an our customers are very pleased with.

Companies seem to want to increase productivity of their workers by making sure they are fully utilized by putting developers on multiple projects and forcing them to multi-task. Manager fear “down” time for their directs. But is it wise to schedule 100% of an employee’s time?

What are the perceived benefits of multitasking:

1. A developer will always have a task to work on.
2. More projects can be staffed.
3. More development hours are recorded against projects.

But are benefits producing a good return on investment? Let’s look at each one of these benefits.

1. A developer will always have a task to work on

Every time one changes tasks especially on another project there is a problem of context switching. First one must take the task they are working on and save the information that is needed to work on it in the future. When starting a new task, previous information about the new task must be gathered and the task started. This may create considerable overhead with large tasks in different projects.

Also, a developer may choose tasks that are “easier” to do and avoid project critical tasks when making a switch. This makes them look more productive because tasks are getting done.

2. More projects can be staffed

It does look like company resources are be used more efficiently because more hours can be allocated. But are these really productive hours?

3. More development hours are recorded against projects.

We can all look busy but are we really productive.

One of the foundations of Scrum is that the team is able to focus on a project for a sprint.  This quote is from Scaling Lean and Agile Development page 142:

Do your job. Focus all your efforts and skills on doing the work that you’ve committed to doing. Don’t worry about anything else. In Scrum, work is not arbitrarily forced on people, and work cannot be added during the iteration. Nor is there any multitasking or distraction, because each team is 100 percent committed to the set of small achievable items chosen for the short iteration. There is no partial allocation on different projects; partial allocation means partial results. Each person’s time is 100 percent allocated to the goals of the iteration for the product. This provides the foundation for the focus and reduction in multitasking that leads to quick delivery and productivity

When a team can focus on a single goal they will be more productive. Assigning team members to multiple projects is a sure way of decreasing productivity.

Agile relies on self organized teams. But most of us do not really understand what it means to work on such a team. The model I see most often is that the ScrumMaster or the Technical Lead will take control of the team.

I have seen one team where the ScrumMaster actually created all of the tasks for a sprint and assigned members of the team to work on these tasks. In other cases the technical lead controlled what tasks are created and made sure the team know who are working on the tasks.

I know that each team members may have special skills and it makes sense that they are the best choice but in doing this we loose the value of the team. A team functions best when we share knowledge with each other. It is great when you have a team in which members will help each other even if they are not the expert in the field. Also, a team protects itself when the knowledge is distributed among the team.

As team members we should be willing to learn new technologies. Also, team is more efficient because there is no “down” time.

When a team creates the tasks they are going to do in a sprint they assume ownership of those tasks. They have created the tasks and will be more likely to see that they get finished.