How to adapt Scrum or Agile ways if PO and Team Lead(Developer) has same role in a Project?

Who wants the product you are developing and considers it to be valuable, and why is it thought important to use Scrum, or any agile approach at all, in your situation?

Hi Ian, sorry I did not get you, 

We would like to introduce agility as traditional approaches did not work out nor gave fruitful results. The product will be valuable for our Company and most importantly our department.

Who has decided that the product is valuable, and that an agile approach to delivery is likely to yield better results?

Shouldn’t it be the Product Owner who is accountable for that value and for maximizing it? Why then is that authority absent?

As an agile coach, I have suggested higher management to adopt agile best practices in this product development. We had Head of Dept. acting as Product owner but as of now, He does not have time for particular this product, he would like to be informed of the success of the product development. 

Then higher management decided that current team lead who has better vision with the product will play a role as interim product owner plus team lead (senior developer) until we find a product owner.

Then as an agile coach, I decided to opt for Agile mixed practices to at least have streamlined SDLC process and to reach the major milestones for a stable release. 

Now, with the success of Agile, we are really productive that after introducing daily standups, backlog grooming etc.

The question still exists as I asked in my original post. 

 

How would you lead this role if you place yourself in my role?

what steps would you have introduced here?

I forgot to add one point that our Team Lead is accountable for the progress of product development and also he takes authority as a product owner also. he is indeed overloaded with product development plus product planning. I am facilitating him with backlog grooming and other necessary things which can make our product stable for release. 

How do you see it? what have you done if you put yourself in my role? in this situation?

If I was in your position I would make it clear to everyone that I was not in a Scrum Master role, since Scrum is not being implemented. There is currently a mix of practices which have streamlined an existing SDLC. Product ownership has not been resolved, Sprints are not being observed, the ability of the team to inspect and adapt product or process in a time-boxed fashion is thereby compromised, and end-of Sprint deliverables meeting a release-quality Definition of Done are not in evidence. It would appear that while there have been some improvements, the full benefits which a Scrum implementation might bring should not yet be expected.

Dear Ian,

I have exactly done the same things as you mentioned. In my first post, I mentioned my role as Agile Coach not as Scrum Master. 

However, I was curious to know what other experienced people think here and what mix agile techniques can be introduced further to streamline SDLC.

Currently, I have introduced officially:

- Daily standups not restricted to time box (Idea is to keep track kanban items)

- Backlog grooming once in a month

- Retrospectives

non-officially:

- Facilitating PO/Team Lead with backlog prioritization

- Making Agile practices clear for all team members

- Trying for it that every team member speaks and suggest good changes

- Updating management regarding progress and challenges etc

- Trying to streamline SDLC in automated ways introducing automated build/tests

Am I good on my agility track or something more can be introduced? regarding process

I agree with Ian; you stated that you are hired as a Scrum master, but are currently not implementing Scrum as you are cherrypicking events from different agile frameworks. Although this might yield better results than with the previous way of working, this is not Scrum. And therefore you are not getting the full benefits of Scrum. You as a Scrum master should ensure that the team and the organization (and stakeholders) understand and enact scrum. You can teach, explain, coach and facilitate to ensure a proper adoption of the Scrum framework. This should include all of its roles, events, artifacts and rules that bind them together and govern the relationship and interaction.

Are teams delivering fully tested, integrated, and release-quality increments at least once a month? If not, how long do stakeholders have to wait before seeing evidence of value, and how large is the leap-of-faith taken before inspecting and adapting product and process? Is the current situation acceptable to them? What degree of agility is the enterprise actually hoping to achieve?

Also, these may be some pointers:

- Is the PO actually focussing on delivering the most valuable items first?

- Is the Team empowered with all the authority it needs to deliver fully tested, integrated, and release-quality increments?

- How is the progress of development assessed? By inspecting working software? Or by arbitrary gates such as "design is done"?

One risk jumps out for me in your example.

Is your team actually working as a selforganizing team, or is everybody doing what the teamlead dev product owner tells them to do?

I imagine with the current setup it could be very hard for other team members to feel ownership, which could result in team members who are not looking to continuously improve.

In general I would suggest to take a very critical look at the 12 agile principles and your own process.

If not, how long do stakeholders have to wait before seeing evidence of value, and how large is the leap-of-faith taken before inspecting and adapting product and process?

- We don't have immediate requirements for release. but as Agile coach, I am working on it to coach my PO regarding stable release once a month at-least.

What degree of agility is the enterprise actually hoping to achieve?

We just started to be agile. Traditional approaches are followed in some departments.

Is the PO actually focussing on delivering the most valuable items first?

Oh yes, he is trying for it as per my observations so far.

- How is the progress of development assessed? By inspecting working software? 

I think, we are good here, we have defintion of ready and dod to meet this criteria.

One risk jumps out for me in your example.

Is your team actually working as a selforganizing team, or is everybody doing what the teamlead dev product owner tells them to do?

I am struggling to mitigate this risk. now we have partial model where team is selforganized, yes. but sometimes not.

I think, we are good here, we have defintion of ready and dod to meet this criteria.

Does the DoD meet the minimum requirement of "potentially shippable"? That is to say, would you give the product increment to a customer without feeling guilty?

Yes, we have DoD meeting with the minimum requirement of "potentially shippable" product increment.