This document summarizes an interview with a productive and happy Scrum team at Salesforce.com. The team has been using Scrum for five years and has eight members, though the composition has changed over time. When asked what makes them a good Scrum team, they cited good communication, mutual support, honesty, and planning carefully. They are motivated by the quality of their work, pride in their product, and accountability to each other. Their advice is to stay true to Scrum practices, be honest with each other, trust each other, and build their own team culture.

1. Confession of a
Productive and
Happy Scrum Team
Alida Cheung 2012
@AlidaCheung

2. Not your usual retrospective
In April 2012, I facilitated an unusual
retrospective for a mature and self-
organized team, the Desktop Solutions
Team at salesforce.com.
I interviewed them, like a journalist.

3. I have two goals

4. 1.
Reveal the team to
itself.
As a system, the
team is naturally
creative and
intelligent, but they
might not know
that.

5. 2.
Attempt to
identify the profile
of a productive
and happy scrum
team.

6. The Team

7. The Team
• Has been using Scrum for five years
• Has eight team members
• Team composition changed over time. In
fact, only one original member remains on
the team
• While team members came and left, the
self-organizing, trust, and collaborative
culture stays!

8. The Interview

9. What makes you a good Scrum Team?
• Good communication
• Mutual support on our tasks
• We are not afraid of raising concerns in our
daily Scrum
• Being honest with each other
• We work hard
• We plan carefully so that we don’t get
overwhelmed

10. What motivates you as a Team or as a
Team Member?
• We care about the quality of our work
• We like our work
• We are proud of our product; our
customers like it
• We feel accountable to each other
• Taking ownership and accountability and
seeing it to the end

11. What are you most proud of as a Team or
as a Team Member?
• “My deliverable is my identity!”
• Customers like our product
• Everyone knows what my Team does
• Working with a great group of people

12. What was your initial reaction towards
Scrum?
How in the world I like the sound of it but the part that
worried me was that we are moving so
are we going to do fast. Do we execute before thinking?
that?
the original team member
wondered at the genesis of the
team
Oh my god, they are
I like it from the beginning. actually doing it!
Coming out of college, I read
about these things. To
actually see it in action and one team member secretly said to
seeing it done well is himself when he joined the Team
amazing!

13. What got you over the chasm?
An open mind - “Funny how the thing you
think would be a problem turned out not
to be.”
Seeing the results - “It was a little hard
for the team but the difference was
amazing. Complete transparency!!”
Transparency -“Productivity shot through the
roof. Everyone sees what I do everyday.
Things start to move very fast.”
The realization that frequently inspect and adapt
means the team won’t be off track beyond control
and can always recover from mistakes.

14. What is the hardest to learn or adopt?
• Breaking up features into stories
• As a new team member, picking
up the next available task even
if I don’t feel comfortable
working on it
• Be true and honest to the
Definition of Done

15. What do you like about
Scrum / Agile?
• Working towards the
Definition of Done
• Know where we are every
week, not just at the end
• Each little piece of Scrum
has it’s own purpose
• The transparency

16. Along the journey, what good practices
have you picked up?
• Make the tasks so small that we don’t
have to spend time estimating them
• Short and productive planning meeting
• Not going into details in the daily standup
• Adjust the process along the way as
needed to improve

17. What advice would you give to a new
Scrum Team?
• Stay true to yourself
• Be honest with each other
and yourself
• Trust each other
• Handle conflicts
• Follow Scrum. They are
done for a reason. They do
work
• Don’t be afraid to step up
• Su-Ha-Ri
• Observe how other teams
operate
• Build you own team culture
• Get a good ScrumMaster

18. That’s what real life Scrum looks like.
Real simple!