Team Brings You up to Speed

You say to the team, "I'd really like to find out more about what you are doing and how you're doing it. Since I'm new here, I thought that maybe everyone can help me together. Can someone tell me a bit about how you are doing Scrum?"

Over the course of the next ten minutes or so, several people pitch in to describe what they are doing. The conversation flows naturally to describe a bit about the software that is being built. You can tell from who talks and who doesn't, which team members are more assertive and probably more senior. There is one guy who doesn't say a word and almost looks half asleep.

You discover that compared with what you have read about Scrum, this team isn't really doing it that well. They have daily Scrums, but they are often half an hour or more on length. They have Sprints, but sometimes they are three weeks, sometimes four, and the one they are doing right now is scheduled for six weeks. The software itself is rarely demonstrated to stakeholders. They did a trade show a few weeks ago so they had to "dress up the pig" as they called it, but essentially, the software is full of problems. Right now they are struggling to solve a big problem that is causing the software to not respond to user interface input.

They also have a big group of people working. You find out that there are about fifteen people "on the team". Not all of them showed up today.

Clearly this is a team that isn't really doing Scrum.

Still, you appreciate that everyone seems friendly, there don't seem to be any big fights brewing, and people are generally positive about the work they are doing. You imagine to yourself that the challenges here are actually going to be interesting to help the team overcome. Still, they don't seem to know what Scrum actually is, and you are concerned that after reading a book and a couple articles online you appear to know it better than them...

Do you:

Tell them right away that they are doing Scrum all wrong.
Start researching how to help the team do Scrum better.

Back to start.