Publications

A starting point for negotiations - Delivering with a heterogeneous team

Lorber, Alfred L.; Tieszen, Sheldon R.

This paper presents a counterintuitive Pre-Sprint Work Balancing methodology that has substantially increased the ability of our highly heterogeneous Scrum [1] team to deliver what it promises at the end of each sprint. The process essentially consists of preplanning steps that acknowledge both the heterogeneity in developer's time and skill level, as well as Product Owner priorities. These preplanning activities act as a starting point for negotiations with the team during the Sprint Planning Meeting. For our team, delivery of all promised tasks in a sprint has increased from less than 1/3 of our sprints to more than 2/3, with indications that we are heading towards nearly 100% delivery. © 2012 IEEE.