Question

Firm’s First Agile Project

You were hired into a new company that was impressed with your two years of experience as a scrum master on a variety of information systems projects. Your new firm has a large in-house information system development staff that is trained and experienced in the use of the waterfall software development process. You have been assigned responsibility as a scrum master for a key project that will be the firm’s first agile project. You have also been asked to train the project manager, team, and newly appointed product owner in the agile process and their associated roles and responsibilities.

Critical Thinking Questions

1. There is likely to be some confusion over the role of project manager, scrum master, and product owner. What can you do to avoid this potential problem?

2. What other potential problems can you anticipate as the team moves forward with its first agile project? What can be done to avoid these potential issues?

Answer 1

1. In order to avoid confusion over the role of project manager,scrum master and product owner, it is extremely important to provide proper training and job description to the employees and explain them the difference between these roles. Also on-the-job training would be a big help to cater to this problem. Regularly keeping in touch with the staff and being cognizant about their issues and problems and resolving them instantly is also a possible solution to this problem.

2. In my opinion, since the team is doing its first agile project, other potential problem could be gelling up amongst the team members. There could be team formation issues and behavioural issues among team members and these issues need to be resolved so that team members work in coordination with each other. Also another issue could be in deciding what is the order of hierarchy and who is the one governing the project and employees since it is an agile project.. In order to resolve this issue, team must sit together and mutually decide amongst itself about the hierarchy and order flow so that there is no confusion later on and also issues related to seniority or juniority do not surface at later stage of the project.