Preexisting culture issues during Scrum transition

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My team has been trying to transition to Scrum for some time now, but it seems like the preexisting culture is preventing the team from switching to a new mindset or even causing it to move in the opposite direction.

For reference, the team has two line managers, a project manager, a product owner, and five developers.

• Developers never have direct contact with the product owner. Although it could be argued the line managers fill that role since they define the work for the team, that is denied by PM.


• The project manager insists she is the 'Scrum leader'.


• PM also insists line managers are part of the Dev Team since all Agile teams have a "Team Lead" role, and direct supervision of the work by LMs is fine since they are the technical leads after all, which is a valid Scrum role.


• PM also insists daily standups serve as a reporting tool.


• Daily stand-ups are run by LMs who use it to track daily progress, supervise each individual developer, comment on their approach, and assign new tasks.


• 1-3 days per user story is taken as a hard limit per user story by LMs instead of a breakdown guideline. If a developer exceeds 2 days on a user story he receives an email about how a developer is responsible for delivering on a deadline.


• LMs insist collective ownership means there should be an individual per feature responsible for its development.

Bonus:

• When I brought up these points in an impromptu way at a meeting, I was pretty much told I was silly for suggesting to remove the LMs from the development process since they were the ones with the business knowledge, or making suggestions since I was new.


• A few hours after I sent out an email to the LMs with the devs CCed summarizing the points I made citing relevant articles, I received an email CCing all people in that email about an issue with a feature I have been working on and how it was taking too long.

Is there anything I can do in this situation to help the team?

management scrum agile

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Victor S

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My team has been trying to transition to Scrum for some time now, but it seems like the preexisting culture is preventing the team from switching to a new mindset or even causing it to move in the opposite direction.

For reference, the team has two line managers, a project manager, a product owner, and five developers.

• Developers never have direct contact with the product owner. Although it could be argued the line managers fill that role since they define the work for the team, that is denied by PM.


• The project manager insists she is the 'Scrum leader'.


• PM also insists line managers are part of the Dev Team since all Agile teams have a "Team Lead" role, and direct supervision of the work by LMs is fine since they are the technical leads after all, which is a valid Scrum role.


• PM also insists daily standups serve as a reporting tool.


• Daily stand-ups are run by LMs who use it to track daily progress, supervise each individual developer, comment on their approach, and assign new tasks.


• 1-3 days per user story is taken as a hard limit per user story by LMs instead of a breakdown guideline. If a developer exceeds 2 days on a user story he receives an email about how a developer is responsible for delivering on a deadline.


• LMs insist collective ownership means there should be an individual per feature responsible for its development.

Bonus:

• When I brought up these points in an impromptu way at a meeting, I was pretty much told I was silly for suggesting to remove the LMs from the development process since they were the ones with the business knowledge, or making suggestions since I was new.


• A few hours after I sent out an email to the LMs with the devs CCed summarizing the points I made citing relevant articles, I received an email CCing all people in that email about an issue with a feature I have been working on and how it was taking too long.

Is there anything I can do in this situation to help the team?

management scrum agile

share

asked 2 mins ago

Victor S

1

New contributor

Victor S is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

add a comment | 

up vote
0
down vote

favorite

up vote
0
down vote

favorite

My team has been trying to transition to Scrum for some time now, but it seems like the preexisting culture is preventing the team from switching to a new mindset or even causing it to move in the opposite direction.

For reference, the team has two line managers, a project manager, a product owner, and five developers.

• Developers never have direct contact with the product owner. Although it could be argued the line managers fill that role since they define the work for the team, that is denied by PM.


• The project manager insists she is the 'Scrum leader'.


• PM also insists line managers are part of the Dev Team since all Agile teams have a "Team Lead" role, and direct supervision of the work by LMs is fine since they are the technical leads after all, which is a valid Scrum role.


• PM also insists daily standups serve as a reporting tool.


• Daily stand-ups are run by LMs who use it to track daily progress, supervise each individual developer, comment on their approach, and assign new tasks.


• 1-3 days per user story is taken as a hard limit per user story by LMs instead of a breakdown guideline. If a developer exceeds 2 days on a user story he receives an email about how a developer is responsible for delivering on a deadline.


• LMs insist collective ownership means there should be an individual per feature responsible for its development.

Bonus:

• When I brought up these points in an impromptu way at a meeting, I was pretty much told I was silly for suggesting to remove the LMs from the development process since they were the ones with the business knowledge, or making suggestions since I was new.


• A few hours after I sent out an email to the LMs with the devs CCed summarizing the points I made citing relevant articles, I received an email CCing all people in that email about an issue with a feature I have been working on and how it was taking too long.

Is there anything I can do in this situation to help the team?

management scrum agile

share

asked 2 mins ago

Victor S

1

New contributor

Victor S is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

My team has been trying to transition to Scrum for some time now, but it seems like the preexisting culture is preventing the team from switching to a new mindset or even causing it to move in the opposite direction.

For reference, the team has two line managers, a project manager, a product owner, and five developers.

• Developers never have direct contact with the product owner. Although it could be argued the line managers fill that role since they define the work for the team, that is denied by PM.


• The project manager insists she is the 'Scrum leader'.


• PM also insists line managers are part of the Dev Team since all Agile teams have a "Team Lead" role, and direct supervision of the work by LMs is fine since they are the technical leads after all, which is a valid Scrum role.


• PM also insists daily standups serve as a reporting tool.


• Daily stand-ups are run by LMs who use it to track daily progress, supervise each individual developer, comment on their approach, and assign new tasks.


• 1-3 days per user story is taken as a hard limit per user story by LMs instead of a breakdown guideline. If a developer exceeds 2 days on a user story he receives an email about how a developer is responsible for delivering on a deadline.


• LMs insist collective ownership means there should be an individual per feature responsible for its development.

Bonus:

• When I brought up these points in an impromptu way at a meeting, I was pretty much told I was silly for suggesting to remove the LMs from the development process since they were the ones with the business knowledge, or making suggestions since I was new.


• A few hours after I sent out an email to the LMs with the devs CCed summarizing the points I made citing relevant articles, I received an email CCing all people in that email about an issue with a feature I have been working on and how it was taking too long.

Is there anything I can do in this situation to help the team?

management scrum agile

management scrum agile

share

asked 2 mins ago

Victor S

1

New contributor

Victor S is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

share

asked 2 mins ago

Victor S

1

New contributor

Victor S is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

share

share

asked 2 mins ago

Victor S

1

New contributor

Victor S is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

asked 2 mins ago

Victor S

1

asked 2 mins ago

Victor S

1

1

New contributor

Victor S is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

New contributor

Victor S is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

Victor S is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

add a comment | 

add a comment | 

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