Scrum Project Inception - My First Complex Project
Hey Everyone! I hope you are all safe and healthy during these times.
My organization (300 people) hasn't fully adopted scrum, but we are keen on giving it a shot and have seen pockets of success. I come from a waterfall project background and could use some advice from the community.
Detail:
- We are to planning to build a developer portal for onboarding external developers.
- I'd like to deliver this in 3 product increments with inspection and validation between each increment.
- The base site with content
- Interactive documentation
- Advanced logged in user experience once
- I've written a light PRD / user stories and have formed a PBI that is well-groomed for each increment
- We've developed a highly functional prototype (that some but not all stakeholders have seen)
- We have a target release in mind and some dedicated resources
I need some help working towards my first sprint:
- We are going to onboard (if approved) an external web platform and contract a web developer. The platform has to go through management approval and security review, how do I account for this in scrum to ensure buy-in and ensure there are no impediments?
- The unofficial project team structure is below, what's the best way to operate if the team isn't entirely cross-functional?
- 2 Dev - In Core Team
- 1 Product Owner / Quasi Scrum Master - In Core Team
- 1 Product Designer - In Core Team
- 1 QA - In Core Team
- 1 Content Writer - In Core Team
- 1 Product Marketer - Outside Core Team but Internal
- 1 Web Developer - External
- 4-5 Senior Stakeholders
- Are project kick-offs meetings a part of scrum? In scaled agile, I know there is the concept of PI planning
- Any general advice or playbook for kicking off my first official sprint?
What you're describing doesn't seem very Scrum-like to me.
You say that you've already scoped out 3 increments. However, this goes against the Scrum, and underlying Agile, values and principles. It doesn't allow for changing environments and circumstances. Preplanning that amount of work doesn't lend itself well to inspection and adaption, with regards to schedule (when the work will be done) or scope (what work is truly necessary).
There's also not much evidence of the team involvement. You mention that you've written user stories and created a Product Backlog for each increment. Where was the involvement of the team? Does the team have an understanding of the work? Have they identified dependencies? Has their input been used to order the work? The team taking ownership of the work and how to effectively get it done is a key element.
For handling reviews and approvals in Scrum, there are a few different approaches. The one I've had most success with is moving it outside of the Scrum process. The Sprint Review is a good opportunity for initial approvals of the product and its status. The Product Owner can choose to release the product to downstream activities - validation, testing, security analysis, etc.
For things like kick-offs, there's not much in Scrum. Scrum assumes things like a created team, the existence of a Product Backlog, etc. If your organization sees value in having an event that ends in the team and a basic backlog and calling that a "kick-off", I don't see why that would be a problem. Different organizations do have a different idea of what kick-offs entail.
Thomas - Thanks for the response. I agree that it doesn't sound scrum like, which is why I'm hoping to take a step back and get some help.
To clarify, the team has been involved in forming the backlog including identifying dependencies. The problem is that there are substantial dependencies outside of my team's control in terms of resourcing and technology procurement.
Follow Up Questions:
- Are there best practices for handling dependencies on external resources or technology?
- Any general advice for approaching pre-planning for large projects?
- Are there best practices for handling dependencies on external resources or technology?
In Scrum, what do you think is the best way to make dependencies visible?
- Any general advice for approaching pre-planning for large projects?
How short can you make pre-planning, so empirical process control begins as soon as possible?