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Self-organizing teams in practice

Last post 08:32 pm July 3, 2023 by Ian Mitchell
1 reply
Christian Whitewall
03:06 pm July 2, 2023

Hello,

Our company has about 15 developers who currently work across 3 Scrum teams. One of the teams has had an overweight of devs for the past year, as there has been a strategic push for their product. Now we need to shift more people back over to the two other teams, in line with the overall strategy.

From my understanding, Scrum teaches that the best way to achieve this would be to explain the context and boundaries to the developers, and let them self-organize.

I am not in doubt that the developers collectively will know best how to organize, but my question is on the facilitation.

This would be the first time the developers are tasked with self-organizing like this. Their personalities vary greatly, and several of the developers are fully remote and not likely going to be able to travel for this. I am worried it will be a demotivating and destructive experience unless there is good facilitation in place to help the process. As an example, I am worried that more outgoing or senior developers will take over the process and decide for the developers collectively. Conflicts could also easily arise.

Any tips, techniques or resources for helping the developers have constructive sessions around this reorganizing? I am coming to this from a leadership perspective, but also with the mindset of being able to help spar with the teams' Scrum Master, who is relatively new in his role.

All input appreciated!

Ian Mitchell
08:32 pm July 3, 2023

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