Modern Middle Manager
Primarily my musings on the practical application of technology and management principles at a financial services company.
Scrum Starting to Show Results

Sunday, December 12, 2004  

We currently have one project finished, two more starting and one almost wrapped up that have been more or less managed with Scrum. The first project was about 30 days long, the second will last 90 days and the other two are probably 30-60 days in length each. Here are some of the things we've found:

1. The group really works together well, although there have been some communications issues. As long as the same team works on more projects, those issues get resolved and their teamwork evolves. I expect bumps along the way, but it's good to see people work together.

2. The product requirements are getting defined pretty clearly but I'm still unhappy with how well the teams define the QA portion of the project. I think QA needs to be an explicit product requirement.

3. Nothing has gone terribly wrong to disrupt a project plan, which is the real test of a methodology in my opinion. We'll see what happens with the latest project -- its rollout is scheduled for next Monday, which will pretty much complete the Sprint.

4. Because of the size of my department, everyone is committed part time to one or more projects. This really changes the dynamic of their daily operational priorities vis-a-vis their project priorities. It's been an interesting management problem.

That's it for now. Also, I've introduced the COO to the idea of a project portfolio. These projects and their total times will have a total cost associated with them so I can track their total expense and ROI, if any. I foresee needing that towards the end of next year in case we compete for resources with the money-sucking line of business.

posted by Henry Jenkins | 12/12/2004 08:51:00 PM

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