Scrum Team Size
Scrum teams are often described as being “small” in size. But what exactly does “small” mean? The size of the Scrum team is actually quite important for the developer role. Teams that are smaller than average, larger than average, or somewhere in the middle all have their positives and negatives. Changes in team size change the team dynamic.
Recommended Team Size
No single team size works for every single project and organization. However, there is a range that tends to work best for most projects and most teams. The recommended range has been defined as 7 +/- 2 members. An average of 7 team members is enough people to get work done, but not so many that communication and administration becomes a problem. As is the case with averages, this means that some teams are larger and some are smaller. Teams smaller than 5 members are often too small to effectively cover all duties. Having more than 9 members on a team yields too many people for effective communications.
More recently, organizations have begun using a range of 6 +/- 3 team members. This range keeps the same upper end of 9 people but extends the lower end down to 3 members. For many organizations, 3 members of a team are too small. Increasingly lean methods have made 3-man teams viable for certain organizations and projects. Splitting teams also tend to yield smaller teams, and having a lower minimum allows teams to be split earlier and with less hassle.
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