Hello and welcome to module 2, «principles of scrum». In this session we’ll discuss an important concept: «collaboration in scrum», collaboration refers to the scrum core team working together and interfacing with the stakeholders to create and validate the deliverables of the project to meet the goals outlined in the project vision it’s important to note the difference between cooperation and collaboration here:
Cooperation occurs when the worked product consists of the sum of the work efforts of various people on a team
Collaboration occurs when a team works together to play off each other’s inputs to produce something greater
There are three core dimensions of collaborative work.
Let’s look at them one by one, the first core dimension is
(1) Awareness it essentially means that individuals working together need to be aware of each other’s work, the next dimension is
(2) Articulation collaborating individuals must divide work into units distribute those units among team members and then after the work is done re-integrate the units into a cohesive whole, the last core dimension is
(3) Appropriation which refers to adapting technology to one’s own situation
the technology may be used in a manner completely different than expected by the designers
Now that we have an understanding of collaboration and its core dimensions
let’s consider the key benefits of collaboration in scrum projects.
The agile manifesto stresses customer collaboration over contract negotiation, thus the scrum framework adopts an approach in which the scrum core team members (the product owner, scrum master and scrum
team) collaborate with each other and the stakeholders to create the deliverables that provide the greatest possible value to the customer.
This collaboration occurs throughout the project.
Collaboration ensures that the following benefits are realized:
(1) The need for bringing about changes due to poorly clarified requirements is minimized, for example, during the create project vision, develop epics and create prioritized product backlog processes, the product owner collaborates with stakeholders to create the project vision, epics and prioritize product backlog respectively, this will ensure that there’s clarity among scrum core team members on the work that’s required to complete the project.
The scrum team collaborates continuously with the product owner and stakeholders through a transparent prioritized product backlog to create the project deliverables the processes conduct daily stand-up, groom prioritized product backlog and retrospect sprint provides scope to the scrum core team
members to discuss what’s been done and collaborate on what needs to be done thus the number of change requests from the customer and rework is minimized
(2) the second benefit is that risks are identified and dealt with efficiently for example risks to the project are identified and assessed in the develop epics create deliverables and conduct daily stand-up processes by the scrum
core team members the scrum meeting tools such as the daily stand-up meeting sprint planning meeting prioritized product backlog review meeting and so on provide opportunities to the team to not only identify and assess risks but also to implement risk responses to high priority risks a third benefit is that
(3) the true potential of the team is realized for example conducting the daily stand-up process provides scope for the scrum team to collaborate
and understand the strengths and weaknesses of its members if a team member has missed a task deadline the scrum team members align themselves collaboratively to complete the task and meet the targets agreed to for completing the sprint a fourth benefit is that
(4) continuous improvement is ensured through lessons learned in collaboration for example the scrum team uses the retrospect sprint process to identify what went well and what didn’t go well in the previous sprint this provides opportunity to the scrum master to work with the team and rework and improve the team for the next scheduled sprint this will also ensure that collaboration is even more effective in the next sprint pause this video if you wish to study the display diagram it provides an illustration of the benefits of collaboration in scrum projects
We’ll now consider the importance of colocation in collaboration for many of the scrum practices high bandwidth communication is required to enable this it’s preferred that team members are colocated, colocation allows
(1) both formal and informal interactions between team members this provides the advantage of having team members always at hand for coordination problem solving and learning one of the key benefits of colocation is that it allows
(2) questions to get answered quickly another benefit is that
(3) problems are fixed on the spot, with colocation less friction occurs between interactions in collaborative colocated teams trust is gained and given more quickly.
There are collaboration tools that can be used for colocated or distributed items for colocated teams those working in the same office a preferred collaboration tool is
(1) face-to-face communications colocated teams can also use
(2) decision rooms or war rooms, scrum boards, wall displays, shared tables and so on.
Although colocated teams are preferred at times the scrum team may be distributed due to outsourcing offshoring work from home options and so forth from distributed teams some tools that could be used for effective collaboration include
(1) video conferencing, instant messaging, chats, social media, shared screens and software tools which simulate the functionality of scrum boards wall displays and so on.
And with that we conclude this session on the scrum principle of collaboration look forward to seeing you in the next session on the scrum principle of value-based prioritization.
Thank you for learning with us
Autor José Angel Pérez
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