Scrum is one of the popular project management methodologies at present. It is very different from the conventional project management methods and offers a fresh perspective to get the work done. In a Scrum team, the employees do not have the usual title roles such as developer, tester etc. They all work together to achieve the common goal in a short span of time and then move on to the next goal. This short span is known as sprint. At times the work can get monotonous and the efficiency of the team can reduce. There are many ways in which you can improve the efficiency of your Scrum team. Four of them are listed below:
1. Sprint Capacity –
Every team is not similar. Some teams can accept a lot of work and still get it done within a given period of time. Other teams cannot. Hence, your first job as Scrum Master is help your teams realize their true capacity to get the work done. After every sprint planning, your team should leave the meeting motivated and excited to get the work done and come for the next sprint meeting. In certain cases, the product owner requests for a particular set of tasks to be completed within the given sprint. The team takes it up even though they know that it cannot be completed. This in turn reduces the efficiency of the team drastically as they cannot complete the given task in the given time frame.
2. Work Overload –
The basic principle of Scrum is to focus on a single task or a single set of tasks that lead to a common goal within a sprint. In a recent survey conducted at a popular company which has branches all over the world, it was discovered that the Scrum teams were accepting more work in a given sprint than they had planned for initially. This extra work came in from the business side or from the product owner or even from one of the managers. This act can cause serious damage to the productivity of the team. In a Scrum process, all the tasks are given a precedence as in which task is the most important followed by tasks that can be done in due time. Scrum teams cannot determine task #1 anymore because they do not have the freedom to allot tasks in their sprint meetings. Hence, it is necessary to let the Scrum teams focus only on a particular set of tasks in a given sprint and not accept extra work.
3. Quicker Sprints –
When Scrum was initially introduced, each sprint lasted for about two weeks. At the end of two weeks, the Scrum team had a meeting with the stakeholder or their representatives. In this meeting, the product was displayed to them and their feedback was collected. The team considered the feedback and made changes to the product. These days’ sprints have a much shorter duration. The teams give out updates of the product on a daily basis or even multiple times in a single day. This ensures that the team regularly gets feedback from the product owner can constantly work towards creating a better product as per the wishes of the customer. Therefore, shorter sprint sessions could keep the team motivated and excited.
4. Undone Work –
When you conduct your sprint sessions, ask your team if they have achieved all the goals they had set in the previous sprint session. If the team responds with a resounding ‘yes!’ then you can confidently present the work to the product owner. There can be situations wherein the team is unsure if the work is complete or not. In such situations review the entire work and check how many tasks are undone. Once they are identified, go about finishing them at the earliest and guide your team as to how they can reduce the number of incomplete tasks within a sprint and produce the completed product at the end of each sprint.
The main motive of adopting the Scrum methodology is to improve efficiency and teamwork. As a Scrum master, it is your responsibility to uphold these principles and ensure that the team achieves them. If you need to clearly understand these principles of Agile and Scrum training, join Agile and Scrum certification or Agile and Scrum certification online.
