What to fix first?

One could imagine many situations…

But imagine this one.  Imagine that you are trying to start Scrum, or perhaps re-start it, or take it to a new level.  You have a few teams.  But you have some of the following impediments.

• The project or products are not well prioritized.
• You have too much work in process (too many products or projects in process).
• The culture is not used to stable teams.
• There is insufficient automated testing.
• There is too few environments, both for development and for testing.
• There is an inadequate process to build or modify environments.
• No one is used to a full time PO or SM.
• There are no dedicated teams.
• People are used to working on multiple projects at the same time.
• You are not doing Scrum well and far from completely.

So, what to do first?

There are many choices.  And I am not sure that anyone knows the one correct answer.

I will still give my gut feel as the correct answer….at least, what I would do first.

I would create a small, real, stable, dedicated team.

Small.  About 7 people in total.

Dedicated. Everyone is 100% allocated to 0ne team.  And we have a full time PO and full time SM.  And the team is dedicated.

Stable.  We want the team to stay together and achieve hyper-productivity. And assuming they do, then to at least stay that high.

Real.  The feel like they are so much strong as a team. So, to them, it is not about individual contrtibution or numbers, but how they together maximize the power of the team.

The hope is that everyone becomes impressed with the power of that Team.  The expectation is that, as a real Team, they can achieve a lot, perhaps hyper-productivity within a few months.

And, using that power, doors open, things change, and more easily the rest of the organization moves towad agile.  And the other problems melt away.

It is not fully explained, but I think you see now why I make that choice.

May you make the right choice for your situation.

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