The Fluid Teams

What are Fluid Scrum Teams?

Fluid Scrum Teams organize themselves based on the work at hand. It is a vital aspect of approaches like Open Space Technology and FAST Agile. 

• Every time new topics need to be addressed, the people of the Fluid Scrum Teams organize themselves to optimize the chances of success of the challenges. 
• They form smaller teams each Sprint to maximize their effectiveness.

Suppose your pool of people is 20, these people organize themselves into 2 to 7 teams to address specific topics.

Fluid Scrum Teams and Scrum events

• Sprint Planning:
• All the Developers that work on the product, the entire pool of people, are present. 
• The Product Owner proposes a number of objectives for the upcoming Sprint. 
• Sprint Objectives:
• A discussion to agree upon the objectives.
• People of the Fluid Scrum Team self-organize themselves around the objectives.
• They decide how to split into multiple teams working on their own objectives during one Sprint.
• Daily Scrum:
• The teams have their own Daily Scrums.
• Sprint Review.
• There's one Sprint Review reflecting upon the outcome of the work of all the teams. 
• In every Sprint, different teams will be formed to address the objectives.
• Fluid Scrum Teams are cross-functional.
• Fluid Scrum Teams and self-management

Team Types

• Complete fluidity.
• In every Sprint, the teams that are formed can be totally different, depending on the problems at hand. 
• This is a solution for environments that are especially complex and every new problem is distinctly different from previous problems.
• Partial fluidity.
• A part of the pool of people is working in stable steams addressing topics of a certain nature for multiple Sprints. 
• Another part is fluid and organizes again and again. 
• This approach is helpful for environments with elements of high complexity and also elements of lower complexity.
• Specific fluidity.
• A smaller group of people with special skills are assigning themselves to teams based on the need for their skills. 
• Many organizations work like this. Especially when they have people that can’t work with a single team full-time. 
• Think architects, database administrators, network specialists, and salespeople.
• Fully stable teams.
• The teams will not change for a longer period. 
• In every Sprint, the teams have the same composition. 
• This can be a good approach for environments that are complex, but with a high degree of predictability of the type of work at hand.

In complex environments, Fluid Scrum Teams can increase agility. By relaxing the constraint on stable teams, your teams will be able to handle increased complexity and tame the chaos.

References

• Fluid Scrum Teams
• Fluid Scrum Teams — An example