What Is Self-Organization?
“Knowledge workers have to manage themselves. They have to have autonomy,” says Peter Drucker.
Scrum Promotes Self-Organization
- By specifying a lightweight framework: three roles, five events, and three artifacts.
- By removing titles for the Development Team members. Everyone is equal, and there is no hierarchy within the Development Team.
- By empowering the Development Team and determining the best way to accomplish its work.
Self-organization enables
- creativity within the Scrum Teams,
- accountability in the Scrum Team, and
- people’s personal commitments to achieving the goals of the Scrum Team.
Self-organization is something that cannot be imposed on the team. Self-organization does not mean a free run where Development Team members can do whatever they desire. Self-organization happens by setting clear boundaries within which the empowered team members can organize their own work. Some factors that promote self-organization in Scrum are the following:
Trust: People in the team must be able to trust each other, communicate freely, achieve insights, and collaborate. Anything that is a barrier to achieving these should be removed.
Time-boxing: This Scrum rule helps focus and manage risks.
Fixed Sprint length: This factor helps with the consistent delivery of business value in every time-boxed Sprint.
Optimal Development Team size: A cross functional Development Team of three to nine members, as recommended in The Scrum Guide, helps remove unnecessary complexity and communication overhead.
Definition of “Done”: Creating transparency regarding the work inspected during the Sprint Review, it also en- ables everyone in the Scrum Team to have common shared understanding.
Scrum Values: The Scrum values of courage, focus, commitment, respect, and openness are embodied and lived by everyone.
This is one of the topics from my book – “Scrum Insights For Practitioners: The Scrum Guide Companion“. Happy reading!
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on Self-organization.
