Organisational Design
The organisation optimised to utilise Agile Scrum, is a collection of self-organising teams. Each team, known as a ‘Scrum Team’, is self-contained. Each team has sufficient resources and skills to elaborate, estimate, plan, deliver and support projects from tender right through to completion. In effect the same people work together for the lifetime of the project.
Within organisations that utilise Agile Scrum, the value-add associated with the goal of the organisation’s end customers is owned by a single person. In Agile Scrum, this person is known as the Product Owner. In the consulting world, you could refer to this person as the Project Owner or Program Owner in the case of larger engagements. Some refer to this person as the Product Champion. The role of the Product Owner is to portray and communicate the needs of the stakeholders with the scrum teams. The Product Owner must understand the need or goal of the project in great detail and equally appreciate the constraints and limitations of the scrum team. Prioritisation of work activity therefore rests solely with the Product Owner. The Product Owner isn’t the customer but an internal representative who takes responsibility for the customer. The Product Owner is often referred to as the “Neck”.
The Scrum Teams will have between 5 to 7 members: Teams with more than 7 members face challenges in communication and coordination; Teams with less than 5 members can’t provide adequate cover during absences or spikes in activity.
Everyone in the team is a “doer”, i.e. they have specific skills which bring value to the goal of the team. Each team will have a “Scrum Master”. The role of the scrum master is to facilitate the team’s activities. The Scrum Master is there to ensure the agreed rules and principles are followed. The Scrum Master aids in blockage removal and ultimately ensures the team has everything it needs to deliver on the goal of the team. The role of Scrum Master can and should be shared around the more experienced members of the team.
Organisations that have multiple smallish projects running in parallel and that can’t individually justify full-time commitments from teams of 5-7 members, should look to have a single team focus on multiple projects. That is to say, whilst it is acceptable for an individual to work across multiple projects, it crucial that key people don’t move across multiple teams. The team as a whole then own the projects and share prioritisation and other aspects of risk.
Organisations that have large projects that require teams of more than 7, should look to have multiple teams working in parallel. This form of operation requires the concept of Scrum of Scrums. Scrum of Scrums is where representatives from each of the scrum teams meet and coordinate activities relating to the team as a whole. For some aspects, specifically estimation and planning, the entire team should be involved. For elaboration it may be sufficient for the scrum team representatives to work with the Product Owner. For delivery and support, the individual teams must agree the level of commitment, not the scrum representatives.
To support the self-organising scrum teams, the organisation will typically invest in providing a business process support resource or small team. The aim of Business Process Support (BPS) is to help setup the scrum teams and to help keep them running effectively. BPS may also take on shared services, like Finance, HRM and ICT. It isn’t typical for BPS to provide governance, but BPS may help the teams set the initial set of rules and principles which the scrum teams will operate by. It is then up to the peers within the teams to adhere to those rules. Ultimately, as the name suggested BPS is there to support the organisation not direct or control it.
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