Changes in Team Dynamics and How they Affect the Scrum
Companies in the twenty-first century are throwing out their old organizational structures, with their rigid hierarchies, and are adopting teamwork as the best way of improving productivity, engaging employees and generally getting things done. Much of this radical change can be attributed to the success stories of teamwork in IT, especially in agile practices such as Scrum. Executives could see that this strange way of approaching work was resulting in both highly improved productivity and deliverables that met the business requirements. While they found the rules of Scrum somewhat bizarre, they could see that it worked.
Scrum also has a distinguished history – it was first described in the Harvard Business Review in 1986 by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka in their article “The New New Product Development Game”. The thinking on teams as a successful way of working has also been around for a while, but companies have been slow to move. Now momentum is gathering, but it also means that companies will have to understand the dynamics of teams and how to manage them. We will discuss dynamics within the confines of Scrum, but the lessons are applicable to any team.
How Teams Evolve and Mature
There are many theories on team dynamics, some of which you may be familiar with, such as Belbin and Myers-Briggs, but the most commonly applied model in Scrum is Tuckman’s.
Bruce Tuckman developed a theory on how all teams go through 4 stages on the road to becoming a high-performing team. There are certain dynamics that can be expected during the different stages, some of which are positive and some of which are negative. In a Scrum project there is the role of the Scrum Master who needs to be able to recognise changes in dynamics and manage them intuitively and proactively. His task is made easier by the way Scrum is structured, as many of the basic principles encourage the development of an effective and collaborative team. The person selected for this very important role is required to be a leader, but not an authoritarian; he must be a “servant-leader” who ensures that the team adheres to the principles of Scrum, through education and facilitation, not dictation.
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course:
Course Contents
Section 1: Agile Project Management
Section 2: Using the Agile Manifesto to Deliver Change
Section 3: The 12 Agile Principles
Section 4: The Agile Fundamentals
Section 5: The Declaration of Interdependence
Section 6: Agile Development Frameworks
Section 7: Introduction to Scrum
Section 8: Scrum Projects
Section 9: Scrum Project Roles
Section 10: Meet the Scrum Team
Section 11: Building the Scrum Team
Section 12: Scrum in Projects, Programs & Portfolios
Section 13: How to Manage an Agile Project
Section 14: Leadership Styles
Section 15: The Agile Project Life-cycle
Section 16: Business Justification with Agile
Section 17: Calculating the Benefits With Agile
Section 18: Quality in Agile
Section 19: Acceptance Criteria and the Prioritised Product Backlog
Section 20: Quality Management in Scrum
Section 21: Change in Scrum
Section 22: Integrating Change in Scrum
Section 23: Managing Change in Scrum
Section 24: Risk in Scrum
Section 25: Risk Assessment Techniques
Section 26: Initiating an Agile Project
Section 27: Forming the Scrum Team
Section 28: Epics and Personas
Section 29: Creating the Prioritised Product Backlog
Section 30: Conduct Release Planning
Section 31: The Project Business Case
Section 32: Planning in Scrum
Section 33: Scrum Boards
Section 34: Sprint Planning
Section 35: User Stories
Section 36: User Stories and Tasks
Section 37: The Sprint Backlog
Section 38: Implementation of Scrum
Section 39: The Daily Scrum
Section 40: The Product Backlog
Section 41: Scrum Charts
Section 42: Review and Retrospective
Section 43: Scrum of Scrums
Section 44: Validating a Sprint
Section 45: Retrospective Sprint
Section 46: Releasing the Product
Section 47: Project Retrospective
Section 48: The Communication Plan
Section 49: Formal Business Sign-off
Section 50: Scaling Scrum
Section 51: Stakeholders
Section 52: Programs and Portfolios