Reflection On Agile Scrum Methodology For Digital Workplace Creation

Findings and analysis

The primary area of reflection will be based on the process that was undertaken for agile scrum methodology to map out a digital workspace. Additionally, clear synthesis of the process based on Driscoll’s model will be defined for clearer demarcation of growth. The key concepts of the following reflective report will provide the core aspects that happened to the team, working agreement, establishing sprints progressed and use of scrum broad progress through reflective notion. Upon completion, a reader can expect to find reflection on the working progress. Based on the insights of the Driscoll model, a clear orientation of the overall process management for digital workplace creation will be depicted in the report.

The John Driscoll Model of Reflection can be considered a framework for reflection that has been turned into an organised procedure (Babatunde & El-Gohary, 2019; p.2). There are many different types of reflection patterns to choose between, and no one-size-fits-all solution exists. In the following analysis, the critical findings associated with the agile team that developed a digital workplace will be provided:

1. Negotiation formation of the team

We are a five-person agile team that decided to develop a digital workplace based on the agile scrum framework. In order to first develop our team, a WhatsApp link page was created, and then everyone in the class shared their phone numbers. Afterwards, we all tried to find our group individually using WhatsApp messaging. After our common interest in developing a digital workspace was found, we decided to share it in the group. The first ones to respond to the idea with constructive foundational ideas were welcomed by the team. That is how our group came together and decided to work as an agile team. After the team decided to work together, negotiation on the team leader’s position, equal work distribution and other related factors were discussed for better proceedings.

1. Working agreement development via team contract

In the views of Hayat et al. (2019; p.146), developing effective team constricts can be contemplated as one of the most critical reasons to develop agile teams as it ensures communication, integration and management. Our team contract was finalised during the initiation phase, and positions were given based on individual abilities and experiences. One person serves as scrum master, while another serves as product owner; one person serves as a business analyst, and the remaining two are engineers. Everyone in the group was really active. Every week on Thursday at 5 p.m., we have decided to hold a meeting to discuss about progress, concerns and other related factors.

1. Establishing sprint progress

So what

As forwarded by Rush & Connolly (2020; p.198), sprints can be considered as one-week to one-month time periods during which a product owner, scrum master, as well as scrum team collaborate to execute a specific product enhancement.. Likewise, in this specific project, we decided to divide the project into five segments, including initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and closure as mandated by the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). During the execution sprint, our developers or engineers work on new features depending on the backlog and user stories. Following the completion of a specific sprint, a new sprint begins. Therefore, we focused on a predecessor based focus to proceed with all the tasks to ensure a seamless proceeding.

1. Use of scrum broad progress

We chose an agile scrum technique and used JIRA software to construct a digital working area for us to map our product roadmap, backlog, and scrum board. As per the Scrum Master’s idea, we have decided to divide our scrum board into five key phases, including user story identification, assigning tasks, working on project tasks, finishing the tasks and reviewing the sprints. We decided to focus on sharing progress in the weekly meetings.

1. Demonstration of agile mind-set

The team initially could not focus on an agile mindset as any prior idea on handling such a project was absent amongst all of the team members. However, through brushing out skills based on some key steps such as focusing on the results instead of the overall process, creating effective work deliverables, and motivating teams, As per the study by Malik, Ahmad, & Hussain (2019; p.12), agile thinking can initiate with flexibility in perception and by becoming aware of the consequences of implementing the thinking. Thus, we, as a team, focused on these attributes to demonstrate an agile mindset.

1. Demonstration of servant leadership

As defined by Friess (2018; p.178), the term servant leadership can be contemplated as a leadership style and attitude in which an individual works with people to gain authority rather than power whether as a manager or a co-worker. Likewise, I have noticed that in this project, the scrum-master being the leader motivated all team members to proceed with their jobs and helped to foster leadership that can help to proceed with a decentralised organisational structure.

1. Psychological safety with the team

In the views of Paul & Behjat (2019; p.718), the belief that speaking out with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes will not result in punishment or disgrace is known as psychological safety. Likewise, I have found that during the team meeting, a shared belief regarding proceeding with working parameters was initiated by the scrum master, which fostered a significant level of psychological safety here.

1. Demonstration of self-organised proceeding

Now what

A self-organizing team considered as one that, rather than being directed by others, decides how best to perform their work. As per discussion, we proceeded with our own job roles as per the planned timeline prepared during the initiation phase, and the scrum master did not interrupt our work. Instead, a guide on how to perform those works better was derived from a proper self-organisation process. Thus, a self-organisation parameter has been adhered to since the initiation of the process.  

1. Benefits from the retrospective

In my opinion, the underlying benefits of the chosen retrospectives were the facilitation of transparency, collaborative environment development, and identifying issues in infancy. As the team members worked according to the principles of self-organisation, transparency on every job responsibility was clear from the beginning. Additionally, I believe identifying issues earlier became easier as the process development was pinpointed since the initiation phase; thus, any changes in the norms could have been highlighted early.

I have found that our team needs to work on the following areas to improve our proceedings.

• Agile Mindset
• Servant Leadership within the team
• Psychological safety within the team

In order to work on these areas, I have developed the following action plan and shared it with my team members to further seek their responses. After seeking their responses to the initial plan, the following action plan has been developed, which can be further implemented for further clarification:

Table 1: An action plan for further progress

Conclusion 

The key intent of the report was to derive the reflective notion of teamwork based on the idea gained from the overall analysis process. Based on Driscoll’s model, a proper idea of the process considered for managing the agile project has been provided. Besides that, the report highlighted core components of what exactly is happening in the team, how the team has developed a working agreement and other factors which led to a clear idea of the overall process focused on strategic development. Furthermore, the results gained from these findings have been briefed in the next section to define the outcome. Finally, the action plan depicted that the team needs to further work on three critical aspects which need to be further improved to work as an agile team.

References

Babatunde, S., & El-Gohary, H. (2019). Necessity of mentoring in entrepreneurship education: reflection by practitioners. Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice, 145(1), 02518007. DOI:10.1061/(ASCE)EI.1943-5541.0000399

Friess, E. (2018). ” Filling to Capacity”: An Exploratory Study of Project Management Language in Agile Scrum Teams. Technical Communication, 65(2), 169-180. DOI:10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e01447

Hayat, F., Rehman, A. U., Arif, K. S., Wahab, K., & Abbas, M. (2019, July). The influence of agile methodology (Scrum) on software project management. In 2019 20th IEEE/ACIS International Conference on Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Networking and Parallel/Distributed Computing (SNPD) (pp. 145-149). IEEE. DOI: 10.1109/SNPD.2019.8935813

Malik, R. S., Ahmad, S. S., & Hussain, M. T. H. (2019, March). A review of agile methodology in IT projects. In Proceedings of 2nd International Conference on Advanced Computing and Software Engineering (ICACSE). DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3351064

Paul, R., & Behjat, L. (2019). Using principles of SCRUM project management in an integrated design project. In Proceedings of the 15th International CDIO Conference (Vol. 1, pp. 716-729). https://mail.cdio.org/files/document/file/206.pdf

Rush, D. E., & Connolly, A. J. (2020). An agile framework for teaching with scrum in the IT project management classroom. Journal of Information Systems Education, 31(3), 196-207. https://jise.org/Volume31/n3/JISEv31n3p196.pdf.

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