This article is shared from the HUAWEI CLOUD community " Beware, your Scrum may be a small waterfall ", author: Agile Xiaozhi.
In order to better embrace change, many teams choose to use agile to manage the R&D process of an organization or team. Scrum, as one of the most commonly used agile frameworks, is favored. A team using Scrum is called a Scrum Team, and a Scrum Team (hereinafter referred to as a team) is delivered in iterations. In an iteration, the team needs to complete the planning, design, claim, coding, testing, and deployment of requirements.
Some teams are new to Scrum, and they are troubled by a problem: at the beginning of the iteration, developers have more work, and testers are idle; at the end of the iteration, developers are idle, and testers have more work. How to solve the problem of resource waiting?
problem analysis
The reasons for the above problems are roughly as follows:
The Scrum that the team engages in is actually a small waterfall
The team is not engaged in real Scrum, but a small waterfall in the "skin" of Scrum - the team has SM, PO, needs to use user story records, and iterative activities such as daily stand-up meetings, review meetings, etc. However, the team still operates according to the waterfall model in the iteration - after claiming the requirements, the development is completed, the development is completed, the test is delivered, the test is completed, the project is launched, and the whole process goes down, resulting in waiting for resources.
Requirements are not broken down enough
The requirement granularity is too large and no further splitting is done. This situation causes developers to complete the coding work of the requirements, and it has come to the end of the iteration. In the early stage of the iteration, the testers can only wait after designing the test cases.
Lack of communication between development and testing
The developer has completed the coding of a new requirement without telling the tester; the tester has not actively and frequently asked the developer if there is a completed new requirement that needs to be tested, until the end of the iteration, the developer will not complete all the developed requirements. They are handed over to the testers together, resulting in resource waiting.
Solution
Let the team understand how Scrum really works
Compared with traditional waterfalls, the ability of small waterfalls to deal with changes may be improved, but there is still a gap between how small waterfalls work and what Scrum advocates. Scrum uses "increment" (increment) to represent each requirement to be delivered. As one of the three major artifacts of Scrum, Increment has two important features: satisfying DoD and releasing at any time. These two features of Increment are agile response. Frequent changes provide protection. On the other hand, small waterfalls - development in the early stage of the iteration, testing in the post-iteration stage, and if new requirements are suddenly released during the iteration process, it is obviously risky - because the code has not been tested. In Scrum, the iterative operation process is more like the following diagram. After each requirement is coded, it is directly handed over to the tester. After the test is passed, it is ready to go online (it can be ready, it is not necessary to go online). In this case, the problem of resource waiting will be resolved.
The reason is that the team's understanding of Scrum is not deep enough. Many teams have moved in the Scrum role and process after receiving the organization's arrangement for agile transformation, but the team does not understand what Scrum is and why. Medicine, may be effective, but it must not work as well as real Scrum.
To change this situation, the Scrum Master and Product Owner should have a deep understanding of agile, so that they can influence the team and even the top of the organization, so that the top level can also fundamentally understand the Scrum process and the benefits brought by Scrum, rather than focusing on the benefits of Scrum. Several teams use Scrum.
In addition, it is also a good choice to hire an external coach to help with Scrum introduction. First, the external coach is usually professional and has a better understanding of the Scrum operation process. Ta will help the team to operate Scrum and provide Scrum-related knowledge for each role to avoid the team. Because the understanding of Scrum is not in place, and detours. Moreover, there is a saying in China that "foreign monks like to recite sutras". Whether it is for the team or for the senior management, external coaches may be easier to talk to than internal coaches, and their suggestions are easier to listen to.
Divide the requirements
When the demand is too large, the team can work with the Product Owner to split and refine the demand - on the one hand, the product value can be better refined, and on the other hand, the workload can be better divided.
There are many ways to split requirements. For details, please refer to " [ DevCloud · Agile Think Tank] How to Split User Stories" .
Improve communication among team members
The lack of communication between team members may appear to be due to the difference in business and division of labor among members, but it is also due to a lack of understanding of agile. There should be frequent communication, just like DevOps breaks the barriers of development and operation and maintenance, there should be no gap between development and testing in Scrum Team.
The Scrum Master should actively organize daily stand-ups to keep team members informed of the progress of the project - which requirements are being developed and which have been developed for testing.
If the standup doesn't work out well, the team can try using electronic or physical Kanban boards to record requirements and the flow of value from them, so it's easy to see which requirements are to be tested.
Develop a generalist
In addition to the above three methods, there is another way to solve the problem of resource waiting, which is to cultivate generalists. For example, developers can not only develop, but also test the functions they implement.
In fact, Scrum does advocate this, the Scrum Guide states: "The Scrum Team is cross-functional, which means that the team members have all the skills needed to create value in each Sprint", the team When the ability allows, cultivating generalists can not only solve the problem of resource waiting, but also allow the team to better practice Scrum.
Summarize
Originally wanted to engage in Scrum, but ended up with a small waterfall without knowing it. This is the main reason for the problem of resource waiting. Only by strengthening the understanding of the agile concept can the team truly benefit from Scrum. I want to know your How much Scrum does the team have? Come to HUAWEI CLOUD Dev SecOps Expert Service - Scrum Maturity Assessment Test~
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