What is an Agile Team?
An agile team is a group or team of 5 to 11 members formed to carry out all the necessary technical and non-technical capabilities related to the assigned project. The technical competencies include the programming, development, testing, and implementation related to the project assigned, and the non-technical competencies include business aspects like domain knowledge and decision making for achieving the goal.
It works on the principle that the outcome of a project is the combined effort of the whole team, whether the result is good or bad. The agile team members work on a full-time basis. The word agile means flexible or to move easily. The Agile teams are formed as a part of project management, especially for the software development in which the whole project is divided into different modules or phases, and continuous assessments of the project after completion of every module or phase and the solution is achieved through the collaboration between the different cross-functional agile teams working on the project.
Roles and Traits
The key to successful team building is creating unity for each team member. Below mentioned are the roles and traits of an Agile Team.
1. Stakeholder/Owner
The product owner is the stakeholder or the client, and the product owner is the most important role as the client has the vision and shares that vision of the end product with the team. The stakeholders are constantly updated with the progress of the project so that the product can be reviewed at the end of every phase. The stakeholder and the scrum master together prioritize the work.
2. A Scrum Master/Project manager/Coach
A scrum master is the coach of the team. A scrum master is the project manager who outlines the entire project and guides the agile team. They supervise the daily activities of the project, mentor the team, and track and monitors the progress of the project.
3. Agile Team Members
They are the backbone of the project, in the absence of which the entire project will collapse. The team members are a pool of specialists like the architects, front-end and back-end developers, UI/UX developers, etc. Different team members are assigned different roles based on their respective skill sets so that the project is carried out in an organized manner. Dependencies and difficulties serve as the stumbling block in any project, and these dependencies tend to make project management a tedious task. These dependencies and difficulties can be real-time also.
As already mentioned above that an agile team works either on scrum or on Kanban approach. Depending on the approach and project. An agile team can be a small team of 5-6 members, or it may be a large team of 5- 11 members. A scrum agile team is a small team comprising of 5-6 team members who are highly motivated and inclined towards achieving their results. In a Scrum team, an independent product is created and tested at the end of the sprint. The products are created in a short span of time.
Difficulties or Mistakes Commonly Faced by an Agile Team
Given below are some of the common mistakes faced by an Agile Team:
1. Communication Issues
Communication is a very critical challenge faced in any project management methodology. The various teams working on the project are limited to their work and communication channels. Hence it is important for the project manager to encourage the daily meetings and review sessions where they should open communication among the team members to track and monitor the project improvement. Open communication is very pivotal so that every team member can put their thoughts and feedback on the table for improving the quality of the product and the service.
2. Product/Project Delivery Issues
Different teams have different outputs and different work strategy; thus, it is highly important to bring all the teams at the same pace and at the same point to deliver the project on time. Different members have different opinions, which can cause interference or dispute among team embers to deliver the project. Thus it is pivotal to neutralize the team disputes and discrepancies.
3. Team Coordination or Access Issues
Team coordination is very important for successful project implementation. The team members working on the project are bounded to restrictions like different working hours, time zones, and access to tools used during the project execution. The higher the lack of team coordination higher will be the differences among the team members.
How does an Agile Team Work?
It is considered the fastest for achieving project completion, and agile teams are known for their speed and flexibility. The structure and roles of the agile teams are outlined before the team starts working on the assigned project. Agile methodology is an iterative project methodology as the project is divided into several smaller modules or phases that can be developed and implemented quickly and in a speedy way. The Agile team works upon two types of agile project management techniques, namely Scrum and Kanban Agile project management. There are few important traits for successful implementation of the project by Agile teams working on the assigned projects. The project is divided into smaller modules called Sprints, during which the product or project is developed at various phases for rapid development and assessment of the project. It conducts daily stand-up meetings for reviewing the project progress and tasks completed till the last day. One of the most important traits is the reviews and retrospection of the work completed in the sprint to track the work completed, and the peers and the managers share and exchange their reviews on the completed sprint before moving on to the next sprint.
It is based on the principles like daily communication (with the stakeholders and the team members), work completed at the end of every sprint, technical skills, constant reviews and retrospection of the completed work, and an iterative approach for achieving a higher quality of the product. All these principles help to build a positive workplace and happy mindsets. It inculcates team bonding, collaboration, and continuous improvement, which helps to achieve the target or the project completion without any judgment. A self-organized, cooperative plan, developers, and continuous assessments of the products at every iteration boost speedy and flexible response towards project completion. It instructs a collaborative and productive work culture.
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