Agile Team Structure and Roles

Agile team structure is a collaborative and cross-functional team that is responsible for delivering increments of value throughout the duration of a project. The team works together to complete all the work required to deliver a usable product increment each sprint. They are self-organizing in the sense that they decide amongst themselves how best to complete the work assigned to them. This includes decisions such as which tasks to work on and who will do each task.

Agile teams aim at creating people with common goals and are flexible and adaptable to changing client requirements. One of the main distinguishable attributes of traditional team members is that they are self-organized individuals practicing shared leadership that have their personal goals at heart. Another common characteristic of an agile team is cross-functional. This emphasizes generalizing specialists with the ability to contribute across many fields rather than just the ones they have already done. It aims to work together to eliminate handoffs and dependencies in a team.

What are the roles of an Agile team?

The Agile environment is flexible and team roles vary depending upon the project. I think it’s important to assign roles to all agile teams as it has many benefits. It helps team members understand their responsibilities within the project scope, keeps the project organized, and allows for better communication.

There are three main roles in an Agile team: the product owner, the scrum master, and the development team.

1. Product Owner

The product owner is responsible for representing the customer’s voice and ensuring that the agile team is working on features that will bring the greatest value to the customer. They are also responsible for managing the product backlog and setting priorities for the agile team. The product owner is responsible for representing the interests of the stakeholders and ensuring that the product backlog is prioritized accordingly. They are also responsible for communicating with the stakeholders to ensure that they understand what is being delivered and why.

2. Scrum Master

The scrum master is responsible for ensuring that the agile team adheres to the Scrum framework and helps remove any impediments that may be preventing them from delivering work on time. The scrum master is responsible for facilitating the scrum process and helping the team to self-organize. They do this by removing impediments, protecting the team from external interruptions, and helping them to stay focused on their goal.

3. Development Team

The development team is responsible for delivering working software at each sprint. The development team is responsible for completing the work assigned to them each sprint. They are self-organized and decide amongst themselves how best to complete the work. This includes decisions such as which tasks to work on and who will do each task.

What is the size of an Agile team?

Agile teams are typically small, with a maximum of nine members. This allows for better communication and collaboration within the team. It also makes it easier for the team to self-organize and make decisions amongst themselves.

The ideal size of an agile team depends on a number of factors, including the nature of the work, the skills and experience of the team members, and the preferences of the stakeholders. However, in general, smaller teams are more effective at delivering value than larger teams.

What are the types of Agile Teams?

There are two main types of agile teams: feature teams and component teams.

Feature teams are responsible for developing a specific feature or set of features of the product. They typically have all the skills and knowledge required to complete the work, and they work together to deliver a usable product increment each sprint.

Component teams are responsible for developing a specific component of the product. They typically have specialist skills and knowledge, and they work together to deliver a usable product increment each sprint.

The type of agile team that is used depends on a number of factors, including the nature of the work, the skills and experience of the team members, and the preferences of the stakeholders. However, in general, feature teams are more effective at delivering value than component teams.

Some of the key examples of Agile Team Structure

Transitioning Agile Team

Everybody starts somewhere. In the transition to agile methodologies such as Scrum, you will be preparing the teams that are going through such transitions. It takes time to learn to move. You need to help your teammates learn how to work. You might also manage your workload as you train your team to run sprints within your discipline. Also, testing will turn into Sprinting. It’s hardly purely Agile but is meant for people who are used to the flow and predictability methodologies. However, long-term it only increases the delivery timescale in sprints. Recommend Agile Preparation Classes.

Specialist Agile Team

In specialist teams, all employees have different skills. This allows you to have excellent software testing results because the people in these roles are skilled in this field. Depending on where you are at the moment you may not be able to understand a structured model as there’s no predictability. Sometimes resources wait to be taken on the next task. During a recent speech at the Oredev Software Development conference in Stockholm, Catherine Powell said a specialist team missed an average of 80% of sprint targets. It should never be considered a specialty until you are able to get it out.

Generalist Agile team

As expected from the name, agile teams are generalists and everyone can take on tasks. The team structure is most effective for understanding projects with a variety of people who perform well. But it must be done by bringing in people that are passionate about everything. And dedicated people with an attitude that is willing to take on whatever. Plus you need projects that are capable without specialized subject matter knowledge. Not everyone is a qualified tax expert.

What is the structure of an Agile team?

Agile teams typically have a flat structure, with all members having equal footing. This allows for better communication and collaboration within the team. It also makes it easier for the team to self-organize and make decisions amongst themselves.

The structure of an agile team depends on a number of factors, including the nature of the work, the skills and experience of the team members, and the preferences of the stakeholders. However, in general, flatter structures are more effective at delivering value than hierarchical structures. Typically, Agile teams should be relatively small—about 3 to 7 people per team.

Evolutionary Approach to Building an Agile Team Structure

When people implement a new framework for Agile, they usually think it was just an experiment. The process continues as we continue gaining confidence and learn more. Kanban uses an evolutionary humancentric approach for forming agile teams and scaling agility across organizations. Essentially this technique is based on the principle of visualizing current operations.

Manage work, not people

To achieve successful services you must also manage your work and allow everyone to manage their own work environment. Remember, team members are the most familiar with the technical details for client requests, therefore it would make sense for this team to pick the best way to perform these requests. The leader will be able to build the alignment between services by communicating the same goal. They must handle tasks using visualization and control queues, easing bottlenecks and assessing flow efficiency. It leads to improved team morale and ultimately more efficient service to customers.

Focus on the customer

All our work is looked after by our clients. We understand that it takes a lot more understanding and skill to improve the value-delivering process within a company to achieve the goals that we aim at. For this purpose, our product and service are measured by the fitness criteria. Other than quality (functional and non-functional), the report typically presents service delivery indicators such as delivery rate (departure duration), and predictive quality quantity or quality. You can track lead time, cycle time, throughput, and other data to see the performance of your product.

Evolve policies to improve business outcomes

Finally, you have to see your processes as part of an integrated policy system to make it logically easy for all to understand how work gets carried out. Give the policy to everyone. They have more information about possible changes. The idea is to see how you provide the service to the market first, then develop your approach gradually to reflect value delivery from a customer’s perspective. As the result, the company’s results improve and retain the ability to adapt immediately to changing client requirements when needed.

How to develop Agile team members?

From engineering and product development to sales and advertising, all team members serve as service providers and help the company advance by adding value to the final products, either directly or indirectly. To ensure symbiosis among all the teams, it should be considered to be a complex and interdependent system where every component evolves individually. In this manner, you can optimize your whole supply chain and obtain huge improvement from localized services optimization.

Agile team members’ characteristics

The secret handshake and tattoos don’t give us an accurate identification but they can be useful. As with all groupings, there will differ between us. There are seven characteristics that a successful Agile team shares: Let us examine all three.

Adaptable

Agile teams have the same flexibility in playing football as football players who have a range of skills. It is difficult to see the application of skill sets in a variety of fields. From demand generation to customer experience to lead nurturing, one can move seamlessly within a given environment without disruption. It is often evident to the student the ability of his or her professional surroundings and this helps to find the most productive place for any given situation.

Entrepreneurial

Traditionally teams follow orders, agile teamwork will not be dictated. They also must make initiatives in the form of campaigns that reflect the stated business value visible in the backlog. Some find it scary, but Agile practitioners will be happy to learn to design new approaches to produce results. Entrepreneurship inspires the team in innovative ways to improve the team’s processes and results.

Team-oriented

Agile environments reward group successes rather than individual heroics. In Scrum, Jeff Sutherland writes: “Teams based upon heroic acts to get deadlines don’t work as they are supposed to”. Balanced team-centrism and an entrepreneurial approach to problem-solving is sometimes difficult, therefore team normation is crucial when working in an agile organization.

Cross-functional

Cross-functional Agile teams often are confused in comparison with T-shaped organizations, but the similarities are. However, cross-functional teams possess skill sets that are far beyond the traditional field. This broad skill set allows for their participation in nearly every kind of project which improves the speed of agile work. Math is easy.

T-Shaped

T-shaped teams have deep knowledge about a project at a basic level (the vertical line at the top) as the leader of the team. Some people are shocked by such team members, but it helps to prove it’s true. It may not be plentiful and so it makes sense for them to stay in touch. Pay for what it is worth, and get them in an agile company.

Curiosity

An agile company doesn’t always improve continuously and lacks curiosity. They must continually think “How can this happen?”. They don’t break something just to break it and they really want to see the results of experimentation.

What is the best way to build a legendary Agile team?

There are many ways to build Agile teams, but not all of them will work for every organization. The following steps are designed to help you create a team that is high-performing, cohesive, and adaptable:

Make sure everyone understands their roles

If the agile group has no understanding of the role and responsibility of a project in general, productivity may fall sharply. When the Agile Team is successful you need to ensure everyone is familiar with their roles in the Agile environment. Flexible team roles vary depending upon the project. I think it’s important to assign roles to all agile teams. It has many benefits to understand roles and responsibilities. First, all members of the team are aware of what specific parts of the project for whom they are responsible.

Promote learning from mistakes

An agile organization is made up of individuals who each have their own personality and abilities. It would be wrong to expect agile teams to accomplish a new challenge in an agile work environment in just one shot. Agile team members aren’t expected to be idealists. Learning from a failure can help in building agile teams. To apply these principles to your agile team, you must develop a framework and guidelines that will help your team minimize risk and gain more opportunities to learn.

Prioritize Team Communication and Collaboration

Communication is essential for any agile or normal team. However, communication should always come as no surprise to agile teams in achieving their best results. Because project scopes and demands may change unexpectedly, members should receive flexible prompt communication so they can coordinate and adjust the strategies immediately. Increased communication will aid the team’s ability to work together. It should be considered a good tool to promote collaboration in agile teams.

Identify the Strengths and Weakness of Individual Members

In evaluating agile team members, the most critical thing is analyzing the strength and weaknesses of the individual team members. Likewise, you must examine the personality and work styles of every candidate you are looking for. During these tests, we are looking to ensure that all of our employees can meet their objectives and meet their project objectives. There is no point in assembling teams that lack the skill to effectively work with each project.

Develop and embrace open feedback culture

Agile teams are responsible for accomplishing a project as efficiently as possible. This basically means you must make sure your agile teams’ efforts take the process to a good point. You must create a feedback environment within an organization. Feedback from members helps in pinpointing issues in the sprint immediately after completion of the project. On the other hand, feedback from project owners can help improve products every time.

Involve to Evolve

In order to be effective in agile projects, it is important that everyone contributes to delivering on-time results. Each member should participate in discussions on the project and make the necessary contributions without hesitation. Agile team members must understand and have a sense of importance. Team member involvement in discussions helps the team stay focused and learn new things from one another.

Get into the right mindset

Finding and choosing an agile employee requires considerable time and effort. It is not easy to create an agile organization overnight. When you decide to form agile teams the first step you need to take is mentally prepare. The people working for you or in your organization must be closely watched. Please do not allow personal interests to affect your decision.

Final Thoughts

Agile team members should be able to work together efficiently and have a shared understanding of roles and responsibilities. They should also be able to learn from mistakes, prioritize team communication and collaboration, identify the strengths and weaknesses of individual members, embrace open feedback culture, and be involved in discussions. Lastly, everyone in the organization must be in the right mindset in order for this to work. Creating an agile organization requires time and effort, but it is worth it in the end.

These are only a few of the things to keep in mind when forming agile teams. There is no one perfect way to go about it. Every organization is different and will require a different approach. The most important thing is to always keep the team’s goals and objectives in mind. With the right mindset and attitude, anything is possible.

Frequently Asked Questions