What Is The Ideal Size Of A Scrum Team?

Posted by Melinda Cange · December 23, 2019

We're a group of 11 people.
My boss insists on making a scrum team out of all of us.
As the Scrum Framework suggests 7+-2 people as an ideal Scrum team size, I am not 100% confident if we should move on with a Scrum team of 11 people.
I would love to hear your advice and experience around the same subject.
Thank you very much!
Melinda

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Comments

Mailerum Perumal Manohar · February 5, 2020

Ideal Suggested Development Size Is 3-9. You Did Say Group Of 11 But Didn't Mention If All Of These Are Developers/testers (pre-scrum). Agile And Scrum Is All About Inspection And Adaptation And Experiment. Key Thing To Do Is Go With The Flow As Your Manager Suggested, Jot Down +ves And -ves Of It In The Retrospective. If Everything Goes Well, Well And Good. If There Is A Trouble, Then This Can Be Addressed And See If This Idea Of 11 People Worked Or Not. Alternatively, The Whole Team Can Be Split Across As Development Teams Of Size 6 And 5 But This Again Involves Overhead Of Product Backlog Refinement Twice, Dependency Resolution, Impediment Resolving Twice Etc. Etc. As Long As Your Product Is The Same You Might As Well Give It A Try And Inspect-adapt.

Team Configuration 2: 1 Person Is Made A Scrum Master And Two Teams Of 5 Members Each.

On The Lighter Side, Bosses Also Have Other Options - Fire 2 Low Performing Members And Make It A Perfect Scrum Team By The Book! :)

Jeremy Knowles · December 24, 2019

Long story short…
You should test this and then find out if it works! If it doesn’t then you can inspect the situation and adapt your team configuration.

A Small Excerpt From <a href='https://www.scrum-institute.org/what-is-scrum-master-certification' style='color: #1155cc; text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold; target='_blank'>Scrum Master Certification Made Economical: Step-by-step Plan</a> That You Should Be Keeping In Mind:

There Is No One Size Fits All Solution For All Organizations Around The World. The Scrum Software Development And Delivery Framework Is No Exception To This Rule.

What We Observed Was That: Most Organizations That We're Unable To Get The Best Performance Out Of The Scrum Framework Have A Common Characteristic. These Are The Organizations That Failed To Adapt Scrum To Their Own Business And It-ecosystems.

Please Don't Underestimate Your Cognitive Ability To Adapt It To The Own Dynamics Of Your Business And It. In Fact, As A Paid Professional, This Is What You're Supposed To Do To Get The Best Throughput And Business Results By Using The Scrum Framework.

Thank you!
Jeremy

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