How to manage process for single man project

Question

We have a single developer working on 3 different projects. He used to work on bug fixes, maintenance and few feature implementation. In one specific project, he works with one more junior developer.

Our company wants to implement scrum for all the projects.. What is the best way to handle the scrum process for 1 or 2 person project?

Answer 1

Maybe SCRUM is overkill here. Organize into work packages and underlying tasks.

The best way? Keep it simple stupid. Don't bloat the project with to much management overhead. You don't have to use a software for your scrum tasks. Issue trackers like Redmine / JIRA are nice to track your progress and assign tasks. But you can also use a whiteboard with a few magnets and memos (task name). So you can assign tasks via the board ;)

Answer 2

An ideal team for SCRUM is 8-10 people. So, I don't know how you can make it work for such small team.

Generally, scrum or agile processes are misunderstood by management people. Just by reading about the success ratio of scrum it creates I-want-to-do-it kind of attraction in management people.

There are two facets of over all SCRUM implementation:

• Processes: Stand up meetings, retrospection meetings etc.
• Engineering Practices: creating clear requirements (user stories), Test automation, continuous integration etc.

IMHO, here your management is looking forward to engineering practices and (may be) some processes as well.

You can adopt these in piecemeal to get in better shape then you may be as of now. (At least in the eyes of management ;-))

Answer 3

Scrum is most surely overkill here. Besides, don't think Scrum is a silver bullet and feel left out if you can't implement it in your project. Read Getting Real by 37signals and some other resources on keeping things lean and you'll find that working with a cross-disciplinary team of 1 or 2 is actually quite an impressively productive unit, if the 1 or 2 people involved are willing and able.

Like Martin K. stated: Keep It Simple Stupid. It's just 1 or 2 people, no need to have "project management" as such. Cut out the crap and just do it.

(That isn't to say you shouldn't follow budgets, expences and measure progress, but don't waste time and money on infrastructure that's not needed)

Answer 4

I agree it should be kept Simple Stupid, but most of the Scrum framework can be used here.

I had several people working in this fashion both on projects as well as on maintenance/operational work.

Product Owner/Backlog - There's still an owner thats in charge of defining the business value and prioritizing, right? The backlog should still be there. If he's part of a bigger Scrum enterprise then he probably needs to feed on part of a bigger Product Backlog.

Scrum Team - yep, its either a 1 or 2-person team. So its really SELF-organization... but thats ok! Daily scrum? yes between the 2 persons, or if its just that 1 person at times, good time to go over tasks and problems, think about what impediments need to be surfaced to the Scrum of Scrum or to the Product Owner.

Sprint - Still a good idea, especially if part of a larger Scrum enterprise thats working in sprints, but even without it. Good chance to catch up with PO, demo what you got, energize yourself, retrospect and see what you can do better, plan for the next sprint. Note that in case of working outside of a Scrum enterprise / Scrum of Scrum, sprints can benefit from being shorter than usual since the scope is probably smaller and the planning overhead lower. but it depends on the situation.

Retrospective - yes, it can be held alone. I think killer programmers need to retrospect on their own work/progress and take action on things that hold them back. Even keep a chart in your workspace to help you with making progress.

Task Board / Burndown - Yes, you need those. You can have them in your work space on the wall, they can be small, but they really help even if you're one person. Why can GTD (Getting Things Done) help a single person and a TB/BDC not? If that person is doing project work then a Sprint Burndown and Release Burndown provide a lot of value. If he's doing operational/maintenance work its still a way to verify he's on track or not, and apply relevant measures accordingly.

Scrum Master - the person should be his own scrum master.

Coach - if the organization had a coach helping the teams/SMs/POs, then he should also help this scrum cell...

To sum up - its clear to me that the values and principles underlying Scrum/Agile apply for 1-2 person teams as well. Its also clear that most of Scrum can be applied as well.

The questions is what the individuals involved think.

If the management, the developer, the PO are all on board and believe that the values/principles make sense, and strive to improve, it will work. If they don't, then first get to the point where the overall thinking makes sense, then deal with the individual team...

Answer 5

Just do it

Answer 6

In my experience, Scrum can still be relevant for projects in small teams of a couple of people with existing responsibilities. Here’s why:

1. It still encourages task breakout and granular estimation.
2. Sprints are still set units of work which should not change in scope or duration.
3. Daily stand-up meetings still encourage regular discussion.
4. You still deliver in iterative cycles.
5. There is still a burn-down chart to track to.
6. You still have the retrospective continuous improvement phase.

All of these are equally relevant for a 2 member team or an 8 member team. Don’t be brow-beaten by people saying “there’s only one way to do Scrum” or that you need more than a handful of people to make it work.