Scrum Principle : Scrum teams do the work. Anything relevant to the work (standards, code libraries, etc.) that is in place prior to a Sprint starting is reused. If something is needed by the team and isn’t available, the team builds or acquires it for itself.

Case Study 8 : Once upon a time there was an organization that wanted to use Scrum. They had heard of its productivity and wanted to enjoy it to quickly get the next product release to the customers.

But there was so much to do before the teams could get going. First the teams had to be identified. Then the backlog queues had to be organized. Then development environments had to be defined, purchased, and put in place. And don’t forget the standards and guidelines … there were a number of these, including how to work with a shared code base, that had to be defined, put in place, and tested for any weaknesses.

The meetings were interminable. Managers meeting with managers, infrastructure teams identified, chartered and started, Other parts of the organization contacted and checked to see if they had anything that was appropriate. And as these changed, we had to keep updating our information for our teams.

After two months of work, we were finally ready to start the teams on their work. We spent a a day training them in Scrum and two weeks training in the development environment and standards - and then they were ready to start formulating their first Sprint.

The organization was surprised that it had taken so long to get going, but – given the expected productivity of Scrum – knew that it would be worthwhile. If only we hadn’t had to have the teams wait while we got everything ready.

Lessons Learned : Management tried to get everything perfect before letting the workers loose. Time was lost, and the teams found that the standards, guidelines, and development environments put in place weren’t really completely appropriate to their needs – so they had to modify them.

Scrum is an empirical, adaptive, process. All management had to do was identify the functional areas of work and form the teams. Then let the teams loose at the work. In transforming the backlog into work for the first Sprint, the teams would identify such environmental tasks as putting standards, guidelines, development environments, and supports into place. The first Sprint often is dedicated to only this work. If multiple teams are present, they often break themselves into sub-Sprints to attack and complete this work.

Let the teams do the work. Anything that they need will be identified as an impediment in the daily Scrum meeting. The solutions that the teams derive will be appropriate to their needs – not generalized, or overkill, or irrelevant. And the teams consist of the people who know how the organization works … they will put solutions in place faster than anyone else.