Partially Agile Organizations
One of the common situations in large organizations is that the organization did not implement the agile transformation in all its units. The difficulties experienced by agile teams in organizations of this nature vary in relation to the inclusiveness of the transformation.
In this article, I will talk about 2 partial transformations, the problems caused by them and the solutions.
1. The technology units in the organization have completed their agile transformation or on the way while the commercial units have not yet met with agile.
The most basic problem experienced by agile teams in environments where such a transformation takes place is not being able to speak the same language with the demander (customer). While the team tries to implement agile frameworks, the requestor tries to do business with the conventional methods. This affects the product owner (PO) the most in scrum teams.
• Refinement meetings are either not attended or the meetings turn into chaos. Value production is not focused on, everyone is trying to prioritize their own work. The product owner cannot use the authority given to him by the scrum framework and starts exhibiting unexpected postures (clerk, secretary).
• Since the requesters are not familiar with the concepts of MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and Increment, they submit the features they want in the product as a scope document in bulk as in the traditional method and ask for the completion date of their requests. This obliges the team to carry out sprints of analysis, and the product owner to make and follow-up detailed time planning like a project manager.
While all this is going on, the product owner feels unauthorized, ineffective but responsible, and becomes demotivated. The team cannot focus on the value it will produce, it tries to complete the incoming work as soon as possible and becomes demotivated. At these moments that the savior of teams, Scrum Master (Supertatooo!) comes to rescue.
So, what can the scrum master, who does not have a magic wand, do to overcome these problems?
- May request agility and scrum training be provided to commercial units working with Scrum teams.
- Participate in the meetings (Refinement, etc.) where the product owner and the requestors come together, give on-the-job training and guide the requestors by talking about the benefits will be provided when the scrum is applied correctly.
- Suggest techniques to the product owner that can make Refinement meetings interesting (Eisenhower Matrix, MoSCoW, Canoe, Proximity Analysis, Cost of Delay, 100 Points, ICE/RICE Scoring, etc.).
- By organizing a Grand Retro (a retrospective event in which all stakeholders participate) at regular intervals, put the difficulties created by this situation on the agenda and determine solution actions together with the stakeholders.
2. Some of the technology units in the organization have completed the agile transformation, while the rest continue to work with traditional methods.
You might say, everyone minds their own business, why should that be a problem?
You’re right, if your scrum teams are fully cross functional and work independently of other teams, we shouldn’t expect any problems. But if these teams are doing interdependent work, at least they have to release a joint release..?
The most common problem in such situations is that scrum teams are unable to complete the work they promised to complete in their sprint. This is because they have to wait for the other team to finish their development before they can develop.
• Another problem is that in cases where there is a release dependency, teams still need to act together and run tests together in order to release a version.
A clear visualization of dependencies would be helpful in solving these problems. As a second step, you can try the applications of Scaled Scrum models. Similar to Scrum of Scrums or Nexus Integration Team practices, representatives from relevant teams can meet daily to talk about dependencies.
The permanent solution is to make the teams cross functional.
What can we say, Transformation Takes Effort 😊
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