Slides used for Self-forming team exercise. More details in the blog post https://devmngr.wordpress.com/

1. Self-forming teams
Nov 2017

2. What is happening today
• We will understand how the teams will be formed
• Scrum masters will leave the room
• Teams will form
• Teams will rank scrum masters
• Scrum masters will rank teams
• The result will be read out

3. The One Rule of Team Forming
• We have [n] people (n to be replaced by the actual number of participants)
• 25% people with QA focused knowledge
• 75% people with Development focused knowledge
• The rule: each team to have 1 person with QA focused knowledge and 3
people with Development focused knowledge

4. Process – It’s Iterative!!!
• Iterate, iterate, iterate –
• Up to 5 iterations but at least 3
• 10 minutes per iteration
• On each iteration
1. Arrange into teams
• Constraint: No team can be exactly the same as in previous iteration
• Above constraint does not apply unless iterations are adjacent
• The One Rule must be satisfied
2. Each person - Secret vote: 3 – Very happy, 2 – ok but could be better, 1 – do not like
• Element of uncertainty
• Secret fact to be revealed at the end of iteration 2

5. Accounting process
• At the end of each iteration write your number (1, 2, or 3) and place in an
envelope
• The total for each iteration will be calculated (max is [# of people]*3)
• At the end of the exercise the last iteration that has the maximum total score
and no more than 1 score of “1” will be the team forming iteration
• The last iteration is not necessarily the team forming iteration
• Total scores will be revealed at iterations 3, 4, and 5 (they will not be
summed up prior). Individual scores are not identifiable.

6. Iteration 1
• Form into teams
• 1 QA specialty and 3 Dev specialties
• Write your score on a piece of page and put in an envelope
• 3 – Very happy, 2 – ok but could be better, 1 – do not like

7. Iteration 2
• Form into teams
• 1 QA specialty and 3 Dev specialties
• Each team to be different from Iteration 1
• Write your score on a piece of page and put in an envelope
• 3 – Very happy, 2 – ok but could be better, 1 – do not like

8. The Big Reveal of the secret fact
• The secret fact is:
• on the next slide

9. The Big Reveal of the secret fact
• Iteration 1 does not count

10. Iteration 3
• Form into teams
• 1 QA specialty and 3 Dev specialties
• Each team to be different from Iteration 2
• Write your score on a piece of page and put in an envelope
• 3 – Very happy, 2 – ok but could be better, 1 – do not like

11. Iteration 4
• Form into teams
• 1 QA specialty and 3 Dev specialties
• Each team to be different from Iteration 3
• Write your score on a piece of page and put in an envelope
• 3 – Very happy, 2 – ok but could be better, 1 – do not like

12. Iteration 5
• Form into teams
• 1 QA specialty and 3 Dev specialties
• Each team to be different from Iteration 4
• Write your score on a piece of page and put in an envelope
• 3 – Very happy, 2 – ok but could be better, 1 – do not like

13. Picking your scrum master
• Each team to rank scrum masters, possible rankings
• First choice
• Second choice
• Third choice
• Etc
• You can use 1st choice once but 2nd more than once (you can rank two
people 2nd)
• Scrum masters will do the same for each team
• The rankings will never be publicly disclosed
• Teams: please submit your rankings to me on a piece of paper

14. The big announcement