A trip into the agile world

The product owner (PO) plans and controls the content of the product. His most important document is the product backlog, a dynamic requirements list that the PO sets up, continuously prioritizes, and maintains.

The Scrum Master supports the team in establishing the agile way of working with Scrum and in working together productively. Other frameworks also provide for such a role, such as the flow master in Kanban. In groups that use various agile process models, terms such as Team Facilitator or agile Master are therefore common.

• The Scrum Master works with the team and provides the members with a fundamental understanding of agility as well as the theory of Scrum including values, roles, rules and techniques.
• Coaches the PO on various techniques to continually maximize the value of the product.
• He supports the team in efficiently coordinating and effectively collaborating during the implementation phases (sprints). In addition, he coaches them in the application of agile methods such as test-driven development.
• He moderates team meetings such as sprint planning, sprint review, and especially retrospectives.
• As an expert in self-organized, interdisciplinary teamwork, he empowers the team to choose the work forms and tools that lead most quickly to the goal for each task, solves organizational obstacles, and acts as a mentor.
• He is not authorized to issue instructions to the developers. As a “servant manager,” he acts through his know-how and his role model function. By exemplifying the agile core values of openness, respect, courage, focus and commitment, enforcing rules of conversation, taking cultural characteristics into account and showing appreciation, he promotes trusting, highly productive cooperation. Beyond the project team, he communicates working according to Scrum throughout the entire company.

Many larger companies that are striving for a long-term transformation to an agile organization also hire agile coaches in addition to Scrum Masters. These primarily introduce stakeholders at higher hierarchical levels to the agile mindset and work with them to overcome internal hurdles in order to create the framework conditions for agile ways of working. Scrum derives its added value from interaction with the team and the organization. Only the interaction between the product owner and the implementation teams brings the product vision to life.

In the course of digitization and external networking of the automobile, the number of projects for further and new development of the vehicle operating system, digital tools and services is increasing sharply among manufacturers. To cope with the pressure of innovation and time, the industry has opened up to agile process models. BMW has made agility a core criterion of its IT strategy. The group is developing autonomous driving with large-scale Scrum (LeSS). Competition from tech companies such as Google and Apple, which are also developing autonomous vehicles, is forcing carmakers to collect data more quickly via their own software, which provides clues for further software development and improvement.
In addition, agile process models are increasingly finding their way beyond the IT area and into the entire company. For example, there are teams at OEMs that now also work according to Scrum in procurement, sales and human resources.