Managing a team of 3 - in a non Agile framework
Hello!
I was just assigned to a new team of 3 people as a manager. The team is part of a bigger project which uses waterfall. However, most of our "taks" can be done almost independently of the rest of the teams. Senior manager is old style, sends 100 mails a day, 100 meeting, and currently there is no tracking tool of any sorts, just a deck of documents with the minutes of the weekly meetings.
Today I was scolded for not being aware that a document needed to be done. I was supposed to realize this from reading the deck of 1k of slides of minutes.
Work right now is not efficient and many things the teams does are useless (a hundred ppts and requirements docs). Although we will not use agile in the whole project, I would like to implement Scrum for our team of 3 (regardless of the senior manager). Do you have any experience with something similar, o do you know what would be the best way to organize and keep track of work?
Thank you!
Have you discussed these issues with the team? What do they think about your proposal?
Bear in mind that Scrum is not a "way to organize and keep track of work". Scrum is about establishing empiricism, and learning to build the right thing at the right time.
Given the tendencies you have shared of the larger organization, I'm not sure that you would be able to implement Scrum. You might be able to use some of the parts. But I am still not sure it would help. As @Ian said, Scrum is not for organization and work tracking. It is for working on complex problems using empirical thinking and iteratively delivering incremental value.
@Ian's suggestion of asking the team about this is right. You would also need to identify the individual that will be fulfilling the Product Owner role and include them in the conversations. I would also suggest that you read through the Scrum Guide multiple times in order to clarify the framework in your own mind before you go down this road. I suggest that because often times people see Scrum based upon things people say instead of what the official Guide states. It also would be better if you didn't call what you want to do Scrum if you aren't following the Guide. That often leads to confusion and can hinder the ability of your group to accept the changes.