Scrum Delivery Team turnaround

Background

A digital experience team at a large New Zealand organisation was trialling Agile Scrum – part of their digital transformation journey. The team was a mix of senior and junior internal staff and contractors. Prior Scrum experience was minimal. The acting Scrum Master had theory-only training, and the acting Product Owner had left.

Six months in, the team was facing significant challenges – they were unable to deliver any high value features (only superficial and cosmetic changes). What was estimated as a sprint or two (2-week sprints) was stuck and months delayed. Morale was low, with no fix in sight. The backlog of features kept growing, and the team became the bottleneck.

I stepped into the Product Owner role and also took on fixing how the team delivered. Success meant two things: 1) untangling the blocked features and getting them delivered, and 2) establishing the practices and cadence to create flow for the rest of the backlog.

Sprint 1 – Diagnose

I let the team run one sprint unchanged to establish a baseline. Alongside it, I reviewed the product backlog, documentation, team charter and ways of working.

The root causes became clear: large, poorly refined features entering sprints, no clear entry criteria and no one owning prioritisation or unblocking issues. Work spilling into the next sprint over and over became normalised.

To prepare for Sprint 2, I restructured the backlog with new Epic and Story templates – this brought in consistency in category, level and detail. I also introduced a Definition of Ready – a story could only enter a sprint once it had a solution design, sufficient detail and completed UI (User Interface) design.

Sprint 2 – Reset

As expected, the stuck features failed again. I returned them to the backlog and deprioritised them, after letting stakeholders know the state and the plan to fix it. The sprint was refilled with small, well-refined stories. This gave the team room to breathe and to commit to work and complete it within a sprint. All of the stories were delivered (a first for the team).

In parallel, the large features went through proper refinement, aiming for thorough specifications and solution design. Each feature was then further broken down into smaller features to reduce complexity and dependencies. These were now prioritised in the backlog to be refined.

Sprint 3 – Deliver

The first properly refined feature became the central focus and goal of Sprint 3. A strong sprint plan coordinated shared work between developers and testers, managing timing and sequencing. While the team was working on that feature, I was concurrently refining the other features getting them ready for future sprints – ensuring the team would be able to move onto the next, without losing momentum.

At the end of the sprint, the team delivered its first valuable feature, bringing relief to the team, stakeholders and leadership. More importantly, the team now understood how Scrum should work.

Beyond Sprint 3 – Sustaining performance

The team went on to deliver the remaining high value features one by one, meeting every sprint goal consistently for the next few sprints. Each success built their confidence and motivation. They found their rhythm, and sprints became predictable. Retrospectives became genuine, and the team began identifying and fixing its own issues, growing into a self-managing, continuously improving team.

Once the team became more mature, I introduced them to the commercial value of their work and the actual cost of running the team. With this in mind, they became savvy about how much effort each deliverable deserved. Instead of falling into the trap of over-engineering, they learned to build a quality MVP (Minimum Viable Product), release it and learn from it, then circle back to invest further once the value was proven.

Key Takeaways

• Diagnose before changing anything. One baseline sprint reveals the real problems.

• Protect the sprint with a Definition of Ready. Unrefined work stays out.

• Reset with small wins. Create the habit of committing and delivering.

• Break large features down and refine at least one sprint ahead. Momentum relies on work being ready when the sprint starts.

• Consistency is the measure of high performance. Repeating delivery success over multiple sprints should be the end objective.

• Connect the team to commercial value. Knowing the cost of their time helps teams match effort to value and avoid over-engineering.

If your organisation is facing Scrum delivery challenges, contact us for a free 20-minute diagnostic call.