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Ad-hoc feature teams

Last post 04:16 pm November 12, 2018 by Susan Hunter
4 replies
05:26 pm October 18, 2018

Hello

We are a team of 10 that follows Scrum. I m the PO for both teams (5+5). Someone would say that we are mostly Component teams (I know we should be Feature teams): Backend and Frontend teams.

Problem:

Each team member mainly has certain tasks to work on that are not shared with other members. So during daily standups when someone starts saying what they do, nobody else understands exactly what they do apart from the PO and the Dev lead who reviews their code.

Challenge:

We are required to build a feature that needs people from various disciplines. Frontend, backend, data science, ux specialist etc. 

Note:

Data science team is a team of their own and do not participate in the component teams standups.

Solution:

Build an adhoc team that consists of the above disciplines.

Questions:

1. Is this the ideal solution? 

2. If yes we will need to be having different teams for the various features we will need to build. How a PO can attend all these standups?

3. If this isnt the ideal approach, what would you propose?

4. If you say Feature teams, then I will ask: What if a data scientist and an analyst beling to the feature team but they are not fully needed or needed at all during some sprint? How do we handle this?

Any thoughts welcome.

Thanks

Yannis


07:18 pm October 18, 2018

1. A Definition of Done should be of release quality. If the ad-hoc team you describe existed, would this ideal be met?

2. What does the Scrum Guide say about a Product Owner’s attendance at the Daily Scrum?

3. Would the team you envision be a collaborative one which is capable and willing to self-organize around the work?

4. Why not make this dependency transparent as soon as it is known, so teams can plan to make certain of their members available when they are needed? What about planning such availability on a more regular basis so critical skills can be transferred?


01:57 pm October 21, 2018

1. Yes

2. Nothing. However wouldn't it be better if the PO attended this meeting? At least it works well for us.

Got your point though. There will be no need for the PO to attend ALL of the daily scrums.

3. Yes. However, the plan is to have a different ad-hoc team per feature. So, let's say that within the next Q we are aiming to launch 4 big features. So 4 cross-functional development teams will be built and they will follow the Scrum guide. What about smaller tasks (marketing, payments, operations, bugs etc)? Who is going to address them? Should we have another team for these items?

4. Yes, this can be done.

Thanks a lot Ian, much appreciated!


04:31 am October 23, 2018

the plan is to have a different ad-hoc team per feature. So, let's say that within the next Q we are aiming to launch 4 big features. So 4 cross-functional development teams will be built and they will follow the Scrum guide. What about smaller tasks (marketing, payments, operations, bugs etc)? Who is going to address them? Should we have another team for these items?

Would any of these tasks (marketing, payments, operations, bugs) relate to a specific feature a team works on?


08:54 am November 12, 2018

I do not know how this will going to happen?

Will you please elaborate more to it? I have searched on it but it shown that it is works as a communication medium.


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