As the pace of business continues to accelerate, more and more organizations are turning to agile methodologies to keep up. And with top business priorities revolving around fulfilling customer needs, improving time to market, and reducing cycle time, the Scrum team structure has become the obvious answer for many organizations. Below we will cover what Scrum is and how can you build an effective Scrum team for agile development.  What is a Scrum team? Scrum is an iterative project management framework for implementing the agile methodology. The Scrum framework focuses on continuous improvement and learning to facilitate an agile mindset and allow teams to work together to develop projects. With only a few sets of rules, the Scrum framework provides a flexible guideline for teams to follow and adapt to their specific projects and development environments. This flexibility makes it an appealing structure across teams and organizations.  The basic Scrum Framework is composed of the following elements: 3 agile Scrum team roles: product owner, Scrum Master, and development team A prioritized backlog of user requirements Sprints Scrum events Scrum events include sprint planning meetings, daily Scrum meetings, sprint review meetings, and sprint retrospectives. Scrum team composition The typical Scrum team size is five to nine people (with seven being the ideal—one product owner, one scrum master, and five developers).  Unlike traditional development structures, Scrum teams don’t have a structural hierarchy. Instead, they are self-managing and cross-functional. All team members are equally important and together have all the skills and knowledge necessary to deliver a working product. While everyone has an equal voice, there are three distinct roles within the Scrum team structure. Product owner The product owner is the champion of the product and the foundation for its success. Their main responsibility is to understand the business and customer requirements and define and prioritize the work accordingly.  This role entails:  Building and managing the product backlog Communicating with the business and team to ensure everyone is on the same page Guide the team on which features to deliver next Decide when to ship the product In other words, the product owner acts as a guidepost for the team throughout the development process. While all team members will collaborate and discuss how to tackle the work, the product owner has the final say on what to prioritize and when.  Dive deeper into the seven key responsibilities of the product owner. Learn more Scrum Master The Scrum Master helps the team apply the Scrum framework successfully. They ensure the team functions smoothly by reigning in overbearing product owners, minimizing distractions, and coaching the team on best practices.  The Scrum Master also leads the daily Scrum meeting, which helps the team stay on task and on process.   Development team The developers are the foundation of the Scrum team. While the product owner outlines the priorities and the Scrum master monitors the process, the development team is responsible for determining how to get the work done.   They are essentially autonomous (one of the features that make Scrum unique from other methodologies). This feature makes Scrum teams highly collaborative and close-knit, often resulting in higher morale, satisfaction, and purpose.  Benefits of an agile team structure The Scrum team structure is a popular approach for many teams—and for good reason. Scrum has several advantages:  1. Shorter feedback cycle Due to their incremental approach to development, Scrum teams can receive and act on feedback faster.  For example, instead of spending six months developing and then releasing a product based on the original requirements, Scrum teams shorten the development cycle with multiple, shorter releases (often within a few weeks).  This structure allows them to get feedback earlier in the development process and adapt the product based on their learnings and user feedback.  2. Greater ability to adapt to change Scrum teams are designed to expect and adapt to change. Agile frameworks like Scrum make it easy for teams to pivot based on user feedback and changing requirements as they arise—instead of letting these changes disrupt or derail the development process. 3. Higher quality products Because Scrum teams are agile, they can deliver higher quality products with greater consistency. In addition to receiving and adapting to incremental feedback, Scrum teams also test the product at every sprint, ensuring issues are identified and handled as they occur.  4. Transparency Transparency and communication are key principles of the Scrum framework. The product owner and stakeholder(s) take active roles in the development process.   Therefore, transparency is critical for both internal team collaboration and external client (or user) communication so that the work always aligns with the product goals and requirements.     5. Higher user satisfaction With higher-quality outcomes, responsive feedback loops, clear communication, and managed scopes, it is no wonder Scrum teams so frequently experience higher user satisfaction.    6. Shared team purpose The culture of Scrum is one of collaboration. The heart of the Scrum team is the developers. Because there isn’t a traditional hierarchy with a team boss, and the work itself is structured collaboratively, members have a shared sense of ownership for the product.  This sense of ownership improves morale, gives the team purpose, and helps everyone work more productively.  When to use a Scrum team structure Scrum teams can work on all types of software development projects, including full software packages, client or internal work. While Scrum is a flexible and valuable approach for many types of projects, there are a few ways to recognize when it is best applied.  When requirements are not clearly defined Sometimes clients have a general vision for their product but lack clear requirements. This can make it difficult to estimate the scope of time and costs—which are necessary for fixed cost projects or more traditional methodologies.  The Scrum framework is built to adapt to evolving requirements, making it the natural choice for projects with undefined scopes. When changes are expected during development Similarly, Scrum works especially well for projects that anticipate changes during development. This can happen even when requirements are clearly defined from the outset.  For example, changes in the business environment or evolving technologies can affect product requirements mid-project. Scrum’s agile structure makes it easy to pivot to accommodate changes throughout the development process. When the project is complex Complex problems are difficult to address effectively and efficiently in traditional development methodologies. The more complex the project, the more issues that can arise as you go.  Scrum is well equipped to handle complex projects because it breaks them down iteratively and incrementally. Rather than trying to anticipate all the requirements in one plan at the beginning of the project, Scrum teams work on it piece by piece, adapting as they learn.  Picking the right people for your Scrum team To build a successful Scrum team, you need to bring together the right people. But what do you look for?  A good Scrum team is: Collectively accountable for the work  Autonomous and self-organizing Cross-functional and balanced Colocated and everyone works full-time together Additionally, look for a product owner who is fully available for the project. They must be fully involved to ensure the team has the right priorities and guiding requirements along the way.  When you have determined the key competencies required for a given project, consider using a visual workspace to highlight employees with the necessary strengths and skill sets. In Lucidchart, you can generate an org chart from employee data, add conditional formatting, and group employees by various factors. Though Scrum is not difficult to implement, consistently delivering real value is never easy. Teams that want to succeed in an Agile environment must commit to the process and their own personal and collective growth. Those that do are the ones who will stay ahead of the curve. This article first appeared on this link.

On the flip side of information overload is a situation where stakeholders clearly do not want to share information with the business analyst. The BA should not take this personal. A stakeholder can be uncooperative for a number of reasons as illustrated below: Solution: I once worked with an uncooperative stakeholder who clearly didn’t want to share any information concerning how she did her work. She kept shifting the goal post and would not schedule a firm date to meet. After several unsuccessful attempts at getting her to commit to a date, I asked her for the templates/documents she made use of. She didn't have any choice but to share these documents, which contained most of the information I needed. If a stakeholder is uncooperative, altering your technique or approach might help. If you are able to establish rapport with stakeholders by identifying a common area of interest, they’re more likely to be open to sharing information. Begin each meeting or workshop session with an icebreaker to ensure that everyone is completely relaxed and clear on the objectives and benefits of the project. As time goes on, share success stories and anticipated benefits of the project with stakeholders to gain their trust, confidence and support. As a last resort, if the stakeholder is still not forthcoming, consider escalating to a higher authority who might be able to encourage the desired behaviour. Courtesy of, https://businessanalystlearnings.com/blog/2013/4/29/common-problems-faced-by-business-analysts