Artificial intelligence is the basis for many agile applications. InfoQ author Ben Linders wrote a detailed article about the role of AI in the Agile World. One of the many ways that agile developers are utilizing AI is by streamlining the implementation of Scrum teams.
AI Enables Agile Teams to Use Scrum on an Entirely New Scale
Businesses are facing a fast-paced environment and more organizations are looking for effective ways to keep up. It’s all about fulfilling the needs of your customers and improving the speed at which you can put a product on the market. Agile and Scrum team structure is the most relevant answer to all of these needs. AI is playing a crucial role in the deployment of both of these technologies.
How does AI play a role in the implementation of Scrum? Agile Alliance has discussed this in detail. A couple of years ago, they used AI algorithms to create a virtual Scrum master platform. This has helped them leverage the benefits of machine learning in the Scrum environment.
If you are unsure of what this means for your company and how it can help you build an effective team, here are some guidelines.
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Scrum Team
You may be wondering what Scrum really is. Well, it’s a framework for project management which is known for implementing agile methods. It’s iterative and it focuses on incremental and continuous improvement and learning about the necessary mindset it takes to work with a team on a project. Click here to learn even more.
It only has a few sets of simple rules and it provides a somewhat flexible path for teams to be on and they can easily adapt it to their projects and their own environments and needs. The fact that it’s so flexible makes it so appealing for various teams and organizations.
The basic framework is comprised of:
- The roles of product owner, development team and Scrum master
- Sprints
- Scrum events
- The backlog of user requirements – planning meetings, daily meetings, sprint retrospectives, etc.
- New AI capabilities
The final bullet point, AI capabilities, have not received as much attention. Part of the reason is that AI is seamlessly embedded in many agile environments, so even experienced developers don’t often think about them. However, AI features play a vital role in the development of Scrum teams and other agile units.
Team composition
The typical scrum team involves 5 to 9 people and it’s best if it has 7. This would mean that it has one product owner and a scrum master as well as 5 team members. There is no hierarchy here. Everyone is managing themselves and everyone is working together. Every member is important and everyone has the skills to make the product.
All members have equal say in what happens, but there are three roles that define the structure. The first one is the product owner who is the foundation of the project’s success. The responsibility they hold is one of understanding the business and the customer and prioritizing important work.
Here’s what they might do:
- Managing backlog
- Communicating with everyone on the team and ensuring that everyone is on board
- Guiding the team
- Deciding on shipment dates
The owner is a guide of the team and they have the final say.
Scrum master is the one who assists the team in applying the framework and they ensure that everything works properly. They minimize distractions and coach the team on how to finish everything on time. They use new AI features to implement machine learning on a whole new level. This enables them to operate far more efficiently.
They lead the daily framework meetings or Scrum meetings and so on.
A development team is a group of people who determines how the work should be done and they are autonomous. As https://agile.coach says, this makes the team unique because they work together and have a community that results in a lot of motivation and satisfaction.
Benefits of an agile team
This is a very popular team structure for many reasons. There are several benefits:
- Quick feedback – Because the approach here is more incremental, team members get quick feedback on each new thing that they add. Consequently, they can work on improvements sooner. Instead of waiting for months, the team has a shorter development cycle and they release more often.
- They are quick to adapt – If something changes on the market, the scrum team will adapt quickly. The same goes for feedback. An agile team will quickly adapt to changed requirements and they won’t let anything disrupt their development.
- Higher quality – These teams are able to consistently produce better products based on what the audience has to say. They also test the product more often and the issues are identified pretty quickly.
- They are transparent – The communication is the most important thing in these teams. Each team member knows what will happen, when and how. There are no secrets in the team and everyone has an active role. They are also transparent with users.
- Users are happier – Because of the high quality and the feedback being taken seriously, the users are happier.
- More motivation – the culture in the team is full of collaboration and there is no traditional hierarchy. Developers are a crucial part of the team and everyone feels like they are responsible for the project. There’s a shared feeling of ownership in the team. All of this increases motivation and morale.
Best times to use scrum team framework
These teams can be used on all sorts of projects, especially software development projects and this includes internal work, client work or any packages. It’s a flexible option and it’s also a good approach to projects. Here are the best ways to know that you should apply the scrum team structure:
- In cases when requirements are not clear enough – Many clients will come to you with a general idea, but not a complete set of requirements. So, scrum teams are great here because they allow you to get feedback quickly and get to the final solution through incremental changes.
- In case you expect changes – Scrum works really well in environments where the tech evolving quickly may interrupt a project in the middle and they have to be applied. Making changes this way is easier and you can learn quickly how they work.
- Complex projects – if you have a complex project on your hands, you need to test each aspect of that project and see if it matches the requirements. Instead of anticipating the changes, they can control them and test them.
In essence, this approach will help you work on projects like you’ve never done before – with high motivation from team members and plenty of improvement.
AI is the Focal Point of Scrum Tools
Scrum tools are heavily dependent on AI algorithms in 2020. Agile work teams will rely on these new features to offer new capabilities to their teams.