100th Sprints of FCS Agile Teams
The Slovak software division FCS is a pioneer of Scrum – the agile method of software development at Scheidt & Bachmann. The implementation was started in 2016. Since then, the teams have come a long way and are celebrating significant milestones this year.
The transition to Scrum has completely changed the established way of working for colleagues in the FCS division. They have attended several trainings and workshops that have helped them master Scrum techniques. Sprint Planning meetings, Daily Stand-ups, Sprint Reviews and Sprint Retrospectives became part of their workload.
They gradually overcame their beginner's mistakes, regularly evaluated their projects, and also started coming up with their own suggestions on how to improve their collaboration. And then came the coronavirus pandemic and everything has changed...
The toughest test
"All our processes were set up for personal communication. And suddenly we had to move everything online," says Peter Vlček, Scrum Master. "Everything happened very quickly. But in the beginning it was pure improvisation. So, we started exchanging available online tools and solutions with fellow Scrum masters. Each team gradually set up the way of working that suited them best. I personally consider it a small miracle how cleverly we got out of this situation." The teams still operate in the online environment today. Fortunately, face-to-face meetings, which until recently were a small holiday, are now gradually making a comeback in working life.
The year 2022 with another milestone
Reaching the 100th sprint was also a reason for FCS teams to meet live after the pandemic. No less than 6 of them reached the significant milestone of the number of sprints completed this year:
- DEV MGMT Team 4
- Market team GB/IE
- Team FARO
- Project team Falcons
- Market team US
- Project team ABT Nano
The division's management is aware of the contribution of each team, "I am proud of our teams. They have done a great job with all the challenges they have faced so far, including the pandemic. Not only did we 'survive' it, but we learned from it, it made us stronger and moved us forward," says Marína Schiffer, Managing Director of the Slovak FCS division. And it didn't stop with words of gratitude. Each team was given the opportunity to organise their own team building. "For example, our team included a retrospective in the teambuilding. During the 4 hours there was a lot of interesting information, suggestions and challenges that we want to translate into improvements not only for our team, but also for the whole FCS," says Juraj Pacík Scrum master UK/IR team & Software Test Engineer.
What next?
We all face new challenges every day. To ensure that the FCS division knows how to respond to these challenges, management has revived its collaboration with ScrumDesk company, which has implemented Scrum into the work of its teams. "The company's task will be to assess the current level of Scrum in our teams in detail, but also to suggest streamlining existing processes or guiding them to new approaches that will help them improve or further strengthen teamwork," concludes Marína Schiffer.
Agile method – in project management, it means that the product is delivered in phases, so that the project team can react to possible changes and adapt better to them. The agile approach or framework is not only Scrum, but also Kanban.
Scrum – is a framework that is used to manage complex projects, especially in software development, but also for example in building a house. It solves complex adaptation problems while productively and creatively producing products with the highest possible value.
Sprint – it consists of the process of analyzing, implementing, deploying and testing a particular piece of software. Its goal is to deliver functional software to the customer based on their requirements. In the FCS division, it usually takes 3 weeks.
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