To do Scrum well, teams need to consist of "generalizing specialists". This means that the team has specialists, but they are willing to help each other out to meet sprint goals. If specialists keep working in their silos, the sprint can get into jeopardy.
As the team burns through the sprint backlog, individual team members may find themselves with some free time. Consider for example, the case of a developer who has checked in all her code, and is waiting for the tester to finish the verification. Or, take the example of a tester who finishes writing the behavior tests for a feature before it is developed. This is a good time for people to look around, and see how they can help the team finish work items that are already in progress. If specialists start new work, they can cause damage at bottleneck points in the system.
Here are some guidelines that Scrum Masters can share with their teams, in order to keep work flowing through the system.
1. For the work item you are currently working on, check with your peers to see if they need any help with any tasks. For example - front-end developer can help with a back-end or a test task. If your peer needs help, help them. Don't go to #2,3,4 below.
2. Check with your team if they need any help with stories already in progress. If the team needs help, do that. Don't go to #3,4 below.
3. Take care of house-keeping items, like unit test coverage, automation coverage, framework maintenance etc. while you have a few hours as your work items go through the system and finish. Don't go to #4 below.
4. Talk to your team about putting the next high priority work item in progress. If they agree, start working on it.
It is important that each team member recognizes that they all succeed and fail together as a team. The sprint commitments are owned by the team and not by individual specialists / assignees of work items. Team members who are willing to work outside their comfort zones make a successful Agile / Scrum team.
| Rate this post! |
☆
|
☆
|
☆
|
☆
|
☆
|
