Self-Managing Teams

5 minutes 5 Questions

Self-organizing teams is an integral aspect of Scrum ideology. This stands for the concept where team members are not told what to do and how to do; rather they decide themselves. The team members decide on who will perform the task, how the work will be done, and how they will work together to complete the assigned work. This empowers the team, promotes strong collaboration, and facilitates quick decision-making process. It's important for a Scrum Master to facilitate self-organization within the team and remove any impediments that may prevent the team to do so.

Complete Guide to Self-Organizing Teams & Exam Tips

What is Self-Organizing Teams?
It refers to the strategic approach wherein the team members have the responsibility to manage their work independently. Each individual in a self-organizing team has the autonomy to choose their tasks and decide how the tasks will be executed.

Importance of Self-Organizing Teams:
It promotes efficiency, innovation, and accountability as each member has a direct investment in the project's success. Furthermore, because team members are free to make their decisions, they have a greater sense of ownership and are thus more motivated to deliver top-quality work.

How it works:
A self-organizing team refers to a cross-functional group of people who collaborate and decide internally on their job roles, responsibilities, operations and processes, with less or no official supervision.

Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Self-Organizing Teams:
1. Understand the basic concept of self-organizing teams and its importance in Scrum.
2. When asked about its functioning, explain how it empowers teams and promotes creativity & flexibility.
3. Be ready to justify why a self-organizing team can be more productive and efficient.
4. In scenario-based questions, identify elements that support or hinder self-organization.
5. Emphasize on the role of Scrum Master in developing and supporting self-organizing teams.
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PSM I - Self-Managing Teams Example Questions

Test your knowledge of Self-Managing Teams

Question 1

A remote team member expressed frustration during the daily scrum due to the issues in synchronising with the onsite team. As a Scrum Master, how should you address this?

Correct Answer: Encourage the team to collectively brainstorm and implement changes to their workflows or meeting times to improve synchronisation.

The correct answer promotes active collaboration within the team to find a solution that benefits everyone and respects the distributed nature of the team, which is a core aspect of Agile and Scrum methodologies. The wrong answers, however, propose solutions that do not foster collaboration or understanding between team members, such as imposing top-down mandates, segregating the workflow, or relying on asynchronous communication without addressing the need for real-time collaboration.

Question 2

The self-organizing team is oblivious to the goals of the sprint as the Product Owner fails to communicate effectively. As a Scrum Master, how should you approach this situation?

Correct Answer: Facilitate better communication between the team and the Product Owner and make sure that sprint goals are clear and understood by the team.

The most appropriate way to handle this situation as a Scrum Master is to facilitate better communication between the team and the Product Owner and ensure that the sprint goals are transparent and comprehended by the team. This aligns with the Scrum Master's role, which includes fostering an environment where communication flows freely and everyone has a shared understanding of the sprint's goals. Answer two suggests the Scrum Master should chase the Product Owner to explain the goals personally to every team member, but this undermines team autonomy and bypasses crucial collaborative planning meetings. Answer three suggests following the Product Backlog blindly, which is a poor practice as understanding the sprint goals aids the team in prioritizing their work and addressing uncertainties. The fourth answer suggests the Scrum Master should interpret and convey the Product Owner's goals, which is not ideal because it can lead to misunderstandings - as an intermediary, the Scrum Master could unintentionally distort the message which can cause wrong assumptions and therefore wrong implementations.

Question 3

A team member is consistently late for daily Stand-ups. How should this be addressed?

Correct Answer: Encourage the team to discuss the issue and find a solution together.

The best approach for addressing a team member consistently late for daily Stand-ups in a Scrum team is encouraging the team to discuss the issue and find a solution together. This encourages collective ownership and responsibility, which are at the heart of Agile and Scrum principles. 'Telling the team member off privately' may cause resentment and isn't in line with the principles of open communication and collective problem-solving that Scrum emphasizes. 'Changing the Scrum schedule to fit the team member’s lifestyle' would not be fair to other team members who are adhering to the pre-determined schedule. It could also violate the principle of rhythm and regularity in Scrum meetings which helps teams to stay sync and improve performance. 'Ignoring the lateness as long as the work is done on time' is also an inappropriate approach. Stand-ups are a key part of maintaining team cohesion and open lines of communication, hence, everyone's presence and timely attendance is important irrespective of their individual work performance.

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Other Managing Scrum Teams concepts

Cross-Functional TeamsDefinition of Done (DoD)Empirical Process ControlIncremental DeliveryProduct Backlog RefinementRole of Product OwnerScrum ArtifactsScrum EventsServant LeadershipTime-Boxing
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