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Awarding teams

Last post 08:23 am July 6, 2019 by Xander Ladage
3 replies
02:19 pm July 5, 2019

Has anyone worked on a project with 5 or more Scrum Teams and had recognition initiative? Where every quarter a MVT - Most Valuable Team - award is given to chosen team.

i want to know what was the selection process.

keen to hear about experiences.  


05:21 pm July 5, 2019

Personally I have a problem with the "Most Valuable ..." awards.  Why is one person/team more valuable than another? Aren't all individuals/teams valuable if they are delivering consistent increments of value? If there are 5 or more Scrum Teams working together isn't that very much just one big team? If you must recognize something, recognize the way that all of the teams work together to successfully provide continuous value. 

Many times the criteria being considered would be things such as "completing the most points per Sprint" or "completing their Sprint Backlog in the most Sprints".  Those criteria then become the way that the teams will plan their Sprints and both of those measurements can easily be manipulated by the teams by providing higher points and pulling in less stories to their Sprint Backlogs.  Both of those actions usually impact the team's ability to deliver adequate value but will make them seem more "valuable".  

In every case I have been in where the "Most Valuable ..." award was being considered, I have fought against it with the statements I made above.  It has usually been an eye opening conversation for those involved in the discussion.


08:49 pm July 5, 2019

Perhaps the Scrum Team most deserving of recognition is the one that is least recognized. That’s where transparency over impediments to value delivery is likely to be weakest.


08:23 am July 6, 2019

Love this Ian


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