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I've been a developer in both good and bad Scrums. Usually, the difference boils down to one or more of these points: - Is the product owner any good? (physically present, has mandate, shields the members from company politics, open to story input from the team; like taking care of some tech debt or swapping stories around to fit developer needs, setting requirements that are not too rigid) - Are the team members any good? (physically present, self-sufficient, experienced enough or with a buddy, communicate open and clearly with the product owner and other team members / disciplines, flexible enough to produce a balanced result within the requirements) - Is the scrum master any good? (physically present, proactively alert for difficulties in the process or team, encourages interdisciplinary pragmatic solutions, expectation management product owner, balances the needs of the team vs the needs of the product owner, enforces 5 minute standups in the morning and a good but short retrospective after a demo) - Is the project any good? (realistic budget and MVP, enough room for creativity in development and design, good reason for existence, stakeholders that show up for demo's and stay for the drinks after) - Is the location any good? (a reasonably creative environment, preferably where stakeholders cannot make surprise visits, with an open floorplan so interdisciplinary communication is encouraged, with all needed materials and enough room on the walls for a scrum board, a burndown chart and to drown them in things like post-its, designs and technical schematics) - Is the timing any good? (one to two sprints minimum to get the team oiled, not more then 3 days a week - so the other 2 can be spent at a lower tempo, no team members with large attendance gaps or shuffling people in and out, not more then 12-16 sprints because if the project needs more then clean it up, have some downtime, and start a phase 2) I probably forgot something, but I believe these are the main issues that can really influence the success (and pleasure within) a scrum. One or two issues can be worked around; any more and the project is a drag or even a bust. |