What is Scrum Team?

Scrum team is a group of individuals who work together in order to deliver the required product increments.The scrum framework would encourage a high level of communication among the team members so that the team would - Follow a common goal, Adhere the same norms and rules, Respecting to each other.

The Scrum team would include - Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Development Team.

Scrum Team characteristics

These individuals share different tasks and responsibilities related to the product delivery. Scrum specifies this team as a self-organizing and cross-functional team. Below are the list of key characteristics that are describes based on the ideal scenario and also very important to consider when creating Scrum team.

Self-organizing

Self-Organized scrum Teams are self-sufficient and self-reliant in accomplishing their work without the need of any guidance. Teams are so proficient enough to adopt the best practices to achieve their sprint goals. Each Scrum team have a view on how the group will work. Each team member is equally important, non-hierarchical in this team. However, the responsibilities are clearly defined for each team member. This shows team member should get equal opportunity to raise their voice with their opinion. At last, they can then create a solution together.

Cross-functional

These teams would have all the proficiency and skills within the team to accomplish their work. These teams would not depend on any person from outside the team to complete the work items. Scrum team is a creative mix up of variety of skills which are required to complete the whole work item. All the team members may not have the skills necessary to build the product but would be an expert in his/her own area of expertise. So, as a result the teams with Cross functionality and high Self- Organization would definitely reach high productivity.

Co-located

Scrum is all about close teamwork. Preferably, the entire team sitting in the same room to discuss about the project related issues or requirements. There is no matter how small the discussion is however there are no hurdles to communicate with the team. When team members are distributed over different rooms, locations, or time zones, it is quite common for the people to postpone their interaction.

Dedicated

Every team member should be assigned as a full-time to the project to avoid delay of the work. Because, the resource allocated as part time to the project he may get overloaded or gets easily distracted from the work which causes work completion delay.

Focused on work of single project is far more effective than switching between assignments or dividing your attention between two projects. So, assigning a resource or team member dedicatedly to a single project is the best way to take up ownership and responsibility which is a better self-management.

Long-lived

Teams should be kept together do not make frequent changes in teams. Therefore, making frequent changes requires time for the team to learn to work together.