The First Sprint
The first sprint planning meeting went pretty much by the book.Isaac had done his homework and came to the meeting with acomprehensive list of features the software needed to provide.There was healthy discussion, and Isaac amended the list to includesome features that the team felt was necessary. The afternoonsession featured Isaac, the product owner, prioritizing thefeatures in the product backlog with feedback from the team. Thefinal segment was devoted to the team deciding among themselveswhich high priority features they would commit to build within thefour-week sprint. Atul did a good job of reminding the team thatthey were expected to build a fully functional feature. Thistempered the team’s enthusiasm, and in the end a challenging butdoable set of features was assigned to the sprint backlog for thefirst sprint.
The first couple of daily Scrum meetings were a bit awkward asmembers were careful not to step on each other’s toes. One of thefirst impediments identified was not having a shared understandingof how a self-organizing team worked. Atul kept emphasizing that itwas up to the team to decide who does what and when. Then onemorning it just suddenly clicked and members came forward claimingwork they felt needed to be done. After that the daily scrums tookon a life of their own, interrupted only when a member had to dofive push-ups for every minute late. The pace of work picked up,and there was a shared enthusiasm as tasks and ultimatelyfunctional features werecompleted in rapid fashion. Dineo workedside by side with the other software engineers to solve problemsand share what they had learned. Occasionally Isaac would be calledinto the project room to answer questions about specific featuresand be shown work in progress.
By the time of the first sprint review meeting, the team was ableto demonstrate all but one of the designated features to Isaac andeven three more that were not on the initial hit list. The team gotsome useful feedback not only from Isaac but also from a couple ofthe end users he brought with him. Eighty percent of the featureswere proclaimed done by Isaac while the others needed only slightmodifications. Everyone agreed that the next Sprint review wouldeven be more successful.
The sprint retrospective meeting was refreshing as members spokecandidly about both the good and the bad. Everyone agreed that theteam needed to do a better job at documentation. Issues regardingfairness and spreading both the fun work and the tough work amongthe entire team were brought to the surface. Dineo was impressed byhow everyone focused on what was best for the project not justthemselves.
The Second Sprint
The second sprint meeting went well. The features that neededrework after the first sprint review meeting were at the top of thebacklog and Isaac made appropriate adjustments in priorities, and acouple of new features that were discovered during thesprint reviewmeeting were added. The meeting convened with the team confidentthat they would be able to complete the work they had committedto.
Project work progressed quickly over the next week. Dineo feltpressure to accomplish what she said she would at the daily Scrum.At the same time, she felt a tremendous amount of satisfactionreporting work done. The entire team seemed energized. Then one dayeverything came to a standstill over a sticky integration problem.The team struggled over the next three days trying to solve theproblem until, at the nextScrum, Atul stepped forward saying, “Ithink you should do this . . .” He then proceeded to outline aspecific method for solving the problem, even assigning specifictasks to each team member. During the next two days Atul went backand forth between team members coordinating their work and solvingproblems. While there was some grumbling within the team, hissolution worked, and Dineo was grateful to get back on track.Fromthen on Atul took a more active role in daily Scrum meetings, oftenhaving the final say as to the work agenda for that day. Themeetings took on a different toneas members waited for Atul tospeak first. Isaac was absent from the project room during thistime as he was visiting sites that would be using the new software.Still, features were being completed and Dineo was happy with theprogress. Then one day Isaac showed up at the morning Scrummeeting. He had just gotten back and had fresh information hewanted to introduce into the project. He had rewritten the productlog and added several new, high priority features and eliminated afew of the features that the team had been working on. He wantedthe team to shift their efforts and completethe new features by theend of the sprint.
The team was shocked because one of the principles they had beentaught is that you don’t change course midway through a sprint.Atul did his best to explain this to Isaac, but he was insistent.He kept saying that these changes had to be made, otherwise much ofthe sprint output would be a waste of time. He kept repeating thatthe team neededto be flexible. “After all, isn’t that what theagile approach is all about?” The meetingcame to an impasse untilAtul came forward with a compromise. The team would agree to do thenew work, but the sprint needed to be extended by two weeks.Everyone agreed and Dineo went back to work.
Up till the end of the second sprint, Atul continued to directproject work. When it came for the sprint review meeting four ofthe five new features were completed as well as most of theoriginal features. However, the feature demonstrations did notgowell. Isaac and several of the end users that were present werecritical of the user friendliness of several of the completedfeatures. Dineo and other team members defended their work bysaying, “Why didn’t you tell us you wanted it to perform thatway?”Atul did his best to keep the meeting under control, but the teamhad little tosay when an important feature simply did not work. Inthe end, only half of the features were accepted as beingdone.
Dineo walked out of the sprint review discouraged. Tomorrow morningwas the sprint retrospective meeting. She had a lot on her mind,but wasn’t sure what she should say or how to say it at themeeting

What improvements or changes need to be made?