My Scrum team is still not mature after more than 20 sprints done
I have been a scrum master for just over a year now. To give a history, the scrum team start with only just 4 members, 1PO, 1SM, 2 software engineers whom served as the QA as well at the time the team was new. Fast forward to almost a year, the team grew to 8 members, 1PO, 1SM and 4 software engineers, 1Dev Ba and 1QA. the team was completed around March 2022. The project was ongoing already for almost 8 months and we have not released any decent MVP still. Fast forward to today. we still have not released an MVP to our stakeholders.
Going back to the main problem, - I think that the team is still not mature and I am running out of ideas on how I can help them become more efficient and effective. Just recently we started our sprint, usually we do 2 weeks sprints. During the sprint planning it was agreed that it will be a 2 week sprint so we only committed to what the development team can actually do based on their previous velocities. However, early days of the sprint there were changes in the PO's schedule thus we have extended the sprint to another 5 days without adding anything in the spirnt backlog. Same commitment, but longer timeline now.
we are 2.5 days always from the sprint review, but the team still has more than 50% of the story point estimate undone. This was the case before in our previous sprints, except for the last couple of sprint that the team improved. Now, we are back to the same problem.
Just to share as well, we had a sprint break to realign and start anew because we wanted to improve. After the break, our sprints became better, then after 2 sprints we are back to where we are.
Can someone please share some tips on how we can start maturing as a scrum team?
Our PO is sometimes not available to answer questions from the dev team, sometimes there is a misalignment too with the requirements because he has the final say of whats needed to do and not the stakeholders. (He holds a much higher position than the stakeholders).
I also hold another position in the company while also being the SM.
The developers are located in 2 different countries. Within the software engineers/developers of the development team - we have 1 team lead.
We do all the events and we also do refinement backlog.
We also kept on acquiring a lot of bugs every sprint and the team is aware of the improvement on code quality and code review.
There are 3 documents that the software engineers/developers rely on when coding - apart from the user story itself. these are: use cases, mock-ups and test cases.
We set daily goals for the dev team to be aligned and in sync - but we don't meet this goals (for this sprint)
I coached the team more often now than before, I have introduced the concept of swarming , and deciding by 1 hour. But the engineers thought that if they do swarming often, other user stories might be left behind.
I just needed some ideas of how can I help the scrum team mature already and meeting definition of done every after sprint?
Thank you.
It sounds like there is no sense of urgency for improvement. Would that be a fair statement?
What do you consider to be a mature team? What does an efficient and effective team look like to you?
Once you've defined terms like "mature", "efficient", and "effective" for yourself, what do others think these terms mean? Consider the members of the team, organizational leaders, and customers of the team's work.
Once there's a shared understanding of these concepts, only then can everyone agree on where the team should be and what the gaps are between where the team is today and the desired state. And, as Ian mentioned, there needs to be some sense of urgency for the team to move from its current state to its desired state.
we have extended the sprint to another 5 days without adding anything in the spirnt backlog. Same commitment, but longer timeline now.
I cannot think of a good reason to extend a Sprint. The timebox provides a sense of urgency and focus. There's also Parkinson's Law which states that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.
We set daily goals for the dev team to be aligned and in sync - but we don't meet this goals (for this sprint)
Is your Scrum Team coming up with a Sprint Goal in Sprint Planning and committing to it? If not why not? It is a vital part of Scrum for many reasons, including focus. In Scrum there's a myth that the Developers commit to completing all their points and Sprint Backlog items - they commit to the Sprint Goal, a tactical step towards the Product Goal.
[the Product Owner] has the final say of whats needed to do and not the stakeholders. (He holds a much higher position than the stakeholders).
Consider yourself fortunate, that is how it should be!
We do all the events
That's fine, yet what is being adapted each Sprint for continuous improvement? Inspection without adaptation is a waste of time. I would look to the Sprint Retrospective, make transparent the issues, and ask the team for ideas.
We also kept on acquiring a lot of bugs every sprint
Bugs are unacceptable - sounds like its time to revisit the Definition of Done with the entire Scrum Team.
Thank you Gentlemen.
Hi Ian, yes. I would say the sense of urgency for improvement is lacking.
Hi Thomas, that's a great question. I should ponder on that further so I can define it. Do you have some ideas you want to share?
Hi Chris, the sprint was extended due to the hectic schedule of the P.O where if we stick to the original timeline. he won't be able to attend, Review, Retro and the next sprint planning. A sprint goal is set. but usually this is set after the team have chosen user stories for the sprint. Would it be better if sprint goal is created before commitment in users stories (spring backlog) is created? I would agree with it's a good thing if the PO has the final say, though I think there are some drawbacks on that as sometimes requirements are not aligned with that the stakeholders desire. We are adapting the 4 events (review, retro, planning and dsu), we also have refinement backlogs. We started practicing committing on 5 improvement goals every sprint so we can focus on highly critical improvements.
For the bugs - Do you have any suggestions or ideas on how we can reduce these? I think that quality is a critical matter that we always try to improve every sprint, but we are not achieving it. Do we need to have 1 masterfile for our software developers that has all the use cases, test cases and all relevant information that they need to look at when coding? Come to think of it, we actually don't have an agreed and clear definition of done. Thank you.