SCRUM Control Process

Lots of times, when managers look at Agile processes and Systems, what strikes is the difference from command and control structure.

A typical project has plans, documents, sign offs, change requests, invoicing, all that are done at managerial level and then passed onto teams for coordination and implementation. The traditional model works with defined facades and interfaces with the good intent of maximizing time and to fix responsibilities and accountabilities on individuals.

However, current businesses always do good with best ideas and bringing them to fore, where ever they reside. Agile  allows us to create a working, practical system where the accountability is divided equally among all team members for success of projects. Thus, with equanimous participation in
1. User stories creation and estimations,
2. Prioritizing backlogs,
3. Determining sprints and schedules,
4. Identifying dependencies,
5. Tracking effort charts,
6. Continous integration,
7. Testing of incremental builds,
8. Sharing status, impediments and ideas in kick offs, stand up meetings, retrospectives,

all team members develop ownership of their respective roles. This facilitates an accomodative styles to enable and empower their teams to finish their work without lag times.

An important lesson to be learned for leadership and sponsors is to identify a good functional and co-opting members on SCRUM projects over using SCRUM on a dysfunctional team. Often the by-product is that you get a better team co-ordination and could convert a dysfunctional team by introducing SCRUM, but that is a risk and need not be the main objective.

An agile structure is not a deflated control system but a leveraging system by ensuring distributed controls across individuals. The onus is on successful delivery as a master than a manager.