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SM on new team question

Last post 07:43 am April 30, 2015 by Ian Mitchell
4 replies
02:10 pm April 15, 2015

You are the Scrum Master on a newly formed Scrum Team. Which three of the following activities would probably help the team in starting up?

A. Introduce a bonus system for the top performers in the team.
- no: b/c incentives are not part of Scrum, Dev Team needs no such incentives to create potentially shippable increment

B. Ask the Product Owner to discuss the product or project, its history, goals, and context, as well as answer questions.

-Yes: empirical process understanding what is known, but what does the Dev Team need to know the whole products history.

C. Ensure the Scrum Team members have compatible personalities.
-No: fit is important and communication but technical cross-functional skill-set trumps personality

D.Have the development managers for each Development Team member introduce their direct reports and go over their responsibilities on the Scrum Team.
-No: No reports.

E. Have the Development Team identify and discuss the process for turning Product Backlog items into an increment of potentially releasable software.
-Yes, However The Scrum Master would need to be involved in teaching the new team.

F. Have the Scrum Team members introduce themselves to each other and give a brief background of their skills and work history.

-Yes: b/c this would give an understanding of technical knowledge of members on the Dev Team.


04:14 am April 22, 2015

any right answers for the above query


10:16 am April 28, 2015

it should be A & E


11:38 am April 29, 2015

I agree with your answers (A and E). Just one comment about your reasoning for E:



E. Have the Development Team identify and discuss the process for turning Product Backlog items into an increment of potentially releasable software.
-Yes, However The Scrum Master would need to be involved in teaching the new team.



Why would you say that the Scrum Master has to teach this to the developers? Would this not imply that the Scrum Master must be an expert in this field and knows better than all the developers together? Or do you mean it in a way that the Scrum Master helps the developement team have this discussion and find their own process?


07:43 am April 30, 2015

> You are the Scrum Master on a newly formed Scrum Team. Which three of the
> following activities would probably help the team in starting up?
>

Let's work through these one by one...

> A. Introduce a bonus system for the top performers in the team.

A Scrum Team should work in a collaborative manner so that valuable increments are delivered every Sprint. Team members are jointly responsible for creating these increments. A bonus system for top performers could easily compromise this position. This answer can therefore be rejected.

> B. Ask the Product Owner to discuss the product or project, its history, goals, and context, as well as answer questions.

Since the team is newly formed, it would make sense for the Product Owner to establish the background of the product, and the context in which the team is expected to work and deliver value. This is therefore a reasonable answer.

> C. Ensure the Scrum Team members have compatible personalities.

A Scrum Master is not in a position to ensure that team members have compatible personalities, or to assert that an element of conflict would hamper the team's creativity. This answer can therefore be rejected.

> D.Have the development managers for each Development Team member introduce
> their direct reports and go over their responsibilities on the Scrum Team.

Scrum does not prescribe a "development manager" role or an associated system of reports. This answer can be rejected.

> E. Have the Development Team identify and discuss the process for turning
> Product Backlog items into an increment of potentially releasable software.

A Scrum Team should work in a collaborative manner so that valuable increments are delivered every Sprint. Team members are jointly responsible for creating these increments. This is therefore a good answer.

> F. Have the Scrum Team members introduce themselves to each other and give
> a brief background of their skills and work history.

Since the team is newly formed, and its members are expected to work in collaboration, it would make sense for them to get to know each other. This is therefore another reasonable answer.


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