Knowledge Base / Scrum Team / About the Scrum Team / How is the Scrum Team?
The Scrum Team is self-managed
Scrum was conceived as a way to stimulate the autonomy of its teams. Contrary to what we expect from teams in traditional work, there are no managers or any other type of external agent telling the Scrum Team members what will be done, who will do what, how it will be done and by when it will be done. The Scrum Team is self-managed, which means its members decide what is needed to deliver value. However, that said, its members are inserted in the context of an organization, so this self-management must be aligned with the rules and goals of that organization, including regarding the use of the Scrum framework, and is aimed at generating value for its customers.
The Product Owner decides, in collaboration with the Developers, what will be built and by when it will be built. The Developers decide who will do each part of the work and how, and there is no one pressuring or demanding information about the progress of each task. In this sense, with Scrum, micromanagement gives way to self-management.
To facilitate this self-management, Scrum stimulates transparency by providing key points at which the progress of work or its results are inspected. An example of this is the Daily Scrum meeting, in which the Developers themselves inspect their progress in the realization of the Sprint Goal; another is the Sprint Review meeting, where the results of the work done in the Sprint receive feedback from the customers and stakeholders. With Scrum, we can also use tools that increase transparency regarding the progress of work, such as the Sprint Backlog and graphs that can indicate the work that has been done and what remains (see chapter Burndown and Burnup: monitoring work).
Scrum offers clear goals to be carried out in the short term, translated for each Sprint in the form of the Sprint Goal, which in turn is aligned to a longer-term goal, the Product Goal. These common goals between the Product Owner and Developers provide the necessary alignment for self-management to occur. The Developers’ shared accountability for these goals, as opposed to individual accountability for each part, is another essential element, as it stimulates concern for the whole. In a Scrum Team, there is no “mine” or “yours,” but “ours.”
The presence of both the Developers and the Product Owner at the Sprint Review meeting reinforces the sense of accountability for the results of their work, as they will face the customers and stakeholders for whom the work is being conducted. In addition, as I mentioned earlier, there are no hierarchies among the Scrum Team members, no sub-teams and no leadership imposed among the Developers. If these existed, they would lead to different burdens of accountability and undermine the concept of self-management.
Therefore, for this greater autonomy to become possible, it is essential that the Developers conduct the work collaboratively among themselves and with the Product Owner, maximizing transparency and communication. This is one of the main reasons why the number of members in a Scrum Team is small.
The Scrum Team also has the support of a facilitator, the Scrum Master, to stimulate its members to create transparency and take accountability for their problems and solutions, further increasing their autonomy. Among other issues, the Scrum Master also removes any impediments that may get in the way of their work, promotes the organizational changes necessary to empower them, teaches the use of Scrum and facilitates their access to the necessary means to conduct the work.
Definition: elements for self-management
Scrum offers some elements that I consider essential for self-management, which are the following:
- definition of clear value goals and achievable in the short term (each Sprint Goal), aligned with longer term goals (such as the Product Goal or other intermediate goals);
- shared accountability for these goals among Scrum Team members;
- high transparency regarding the work itself and its real progress based on the generation of done parts of the product and exposure to feedback;
- small teams that do the work together and communicate effectively;
- the presence and influence of a facilitator (the Scrum Master), whose primary goal is to stimulate the team’s autonomy.