Every Team Practices Agile Differently

People take time off. I’m an Agile Scrum Master and Coach to a new team in their third sprint. Newbies. I fretted when I realized that I had a mandatory 2-day class scheduled on the same days as my upcoming Retrospective and Sprint Planning sessions.

At the first Retrospective, the team agreed that they really liked Scrum. At the second Retrospective, they felt like they were getting the hang of it. So, I asked the team if they wanted to run Retrospective on their own, because I knew they would not want to give up two days of their Sprint.

After a short discussion, the team decided to handle it themselves. Canceling Retrospective and holding Sprint Planning on Day 1 of the next Sprint was not even discussed as an option.

I got a little teary-eyed when I realized that sometime in the last 6 weeks my team became self-managing.

For the third Retrospective, they truly own it!

Do I think the team will conduct Retrospective and Sprint Planning with the same rigor as when I run it? Not really, but I am excited to see the result anyway.

Teams Learn by Doing

As you know, shifting from more traditional methods to Scrum and adopting an Agile Mindset takes practice. Scrum is a different routine and requires a higher level of commitment than many teams are used to. The change in habits and thought processes comes from experiencing what it’s like to Sprint, accepting mistakes as inevitable and reinforcing through example.

In the beginning:

• My team didn’t even know what Stories to write.
• The team’s first Stories were not really Stories and they required extensive grooming. (They still require grooming.)
• A couple team members’ Standup attendance was spotty, until they began to see the results of daily focus on getting work done.
• Not all Stories closed, because the process was new and the team needed to understand about relative sizing, Story Points and Velocity through their involvement in actual Sprints.

Experience provides context. Reinforcement creates good habits.  

Every Team Practices Scrum in their Own Way

As Scrum Masters and Coaches, we not only need to understand Scrum and how to effectively communicate its principles, we need to recognize the team needs the freedom to practice Scrum in the way that produces the best results.

Scrum prescribes 4 formal events for inspection and adaptation:

1. Sprint Planning
2. Daily Scrum (Standup)
3. Sprint Review (Demos)
4. Sprint Retrospective

As a professional with experience on multiple Scrum teams, I have seen teams within the same company practice Scrum differently. This happens even if all the teams receive training and coaching from the same Coach. Even timing of events can vary.

It’s a good thing for the team to take ownership of the way they practice Scrum. Ownership enforces accountability.

It’s OK if it’s not perfect.
How do you know if good is good enough?

Ask these 2 important questions:

1. Is the team able to predict and meet it’s time-boxed Sprint commitments?
2. If team size remains constant, is Velocity averaging out?

These two factors are crucial to delivering projects on time.

If you answered “Yes” or “Most of the time” to both questions, your team is doing well.
If you answered “No” to both questions, brainstorm improvements at Retrospective.

It’s not about perfection.
It’s about Getting Stuff Done (GSD).

What are your experiences?

Cynthia Kahn

Cynthia Kahn
CynthiaK@gsd.guru  503.799.5500