Friday, April 16, 2010

What does a scrum floor plan look like?

In addition to the roles (Scrum master, product owner, tester, etc), a scrum office layout is particular. Prepare for commonsense:

First of all, here's a quick video primer on scrum...

Now then, a lot of folks advocate for desks on wheels. This allows for dynamic configurations. Scrum is all about communication and team problem solving. Each Sprint will require that different team members work together.

Open Space - There are no tall cubical walls. The traditional cubic-caves defeat the purpose of the open space concept. Scrum floor plans can be described as war rooms. Important, avoid separating disciplines. We are cross functional teams and need to be able to communicate on the fly. The Scrum framework suggests that team members of all disciplines sit together.

Active wall utilization - As developers, we spend so much time in front of illuminated screens. Here's a shot of what Mike Cohn recommends as a typical Scrum board layout:



The layout of your board is up to you. Add what you need, as there are no rules. The image above is one configuration. You can experiment around to find what information is more useful to you. Post up the product backlog, issue backlog, your burndown chart, you get the picture. The goal is to own the space. Of interest, the scrum board concept comes from Kanban so read up on that for more background.

We're all equal in Scrum... You should avoid having coveted locations. You succeed in office configuration if there isn't a bad seat in the house.

Sanctuary - when at all possible, have someplace to retreat for quite time. This could be a space to clear your head, take a private call or meeting.

No comments:

About Me

I produce and engineer games and applications. | Portfolio | LinkedIn