Get Commitment from all Extended Team Resources at Start of your Next Project
In today’s business, organization boundaries blur. When you form a new scrum team, you may not get all the desired resources assigned to your Development Team. This is quite common in today’s business, where budgets are tight and resources are stretched thinly across the organization. At GSD Mindset, we propose that when you organize a new scrum team, in addition to identifying and gaining commitment from the Product Owner, Scrum Master and members of the Development Team, you also gain a level of commitment from what we refer to as the GSD Extended Team.
The required commitment to attend Daily Standup, Story Grooming, Sprint Planning and Retrospective may be too much for Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), Database Administrators (DBAs), Architects and others whose expertise is required by multiple teams across the organization. Just because these experts cannot commit to membership on your Development Team, doesn’t mean they cannot or will not participate on your project. They probably already do participate in some capacity.
The GSD Extended Team Contract
How do you ensure your team gets your fair share of the expert’s time, when you need it?
First, start with a Release Plan. When you know what your deliverable commitment is, you then have a better understanding of how much time you need from each extended team member.
Then, meet with each resource, negotiate the required commitment and document it as part of your Team Contract. If you have a project Kickoff, invite them, because they are a valued member of your team.
Provide Status to the GSD Extended Team
We are agile, so requirements can change, which means desired commitments can change too. Keep your extended team updated, so they can plan for and be available in the Sprint where their expertise is needed.
Keep in mind that even though they agreed to participate as an extended team member, your team priority is not always their priority:
- Confirm availability before bringing in Story that requires their expertise
- Escalate if the required team member is not available within reasonable timeframe
- Provide regular status updates to keep your team’s needs on the experts’ roadmap.
Invite Extended Team Members to your Scrum of Scrums
If your project is large enough to warrant a Scrum of Scrums, invite the extended team to that meeting along with your partner Development Teams. If you keep to the intent of Scrum of Scrums by only focusing on upcoming cross-team commitments, all project teams have a better chance of bringing the right Stores into the next Sprint and having the right resources available to work on them.
Remember, your extended team members probably overlap with your partner Development Teams. Scrum of Scrums offers visibility into all the teams on your project. Openly discuss upcoming dependencies, honestly review priority and negotiate use of scarce resources in good faith to ensure those resources are used wisely.
Even if you do not practice Scrum of Scrums, regular communication across all project players ensures all Development Teams have access to the GSD Extended Team’s expertise when most needed.
I’d be interested to learn how your scrum team manages shared resources.
Cynthia Kahn
Cynthia Kahn
CynthiaK@gsd.guru 503.799.5500