
Ask HN: Is it possible to implement scrum in a multi-project environment? - natellium
The agency I&#x27;ve been working for some months now, decided, after years of waterfall mode, to move into Agile development.<p>I have experience in a scrum (I know agile is not only scrum) environment but have never worked in a multi-project company before, so I wonder if it&#x27;s possible to adopt scrum in a company like that (Because I&#x27;m referring to projects and no products to start with :)).<p>Of course not every project has the same amount of work, some of them require a few hours of maintenance a month, some full development of new features...<p>We don&#x27;t have enough people to have a team per project (we&#x27;re around 5 backend developers, 1 Fronted dev + 2 interns, 1 designer and 1 designer&#x2F;frontend developer) So I don&#x27;t really know how it would be possible to have self-organized cross-functional teams, define a sprint, etc.<p>Do we need a different product backlog per client, with a different sprint planning, retrospective? Several PO&#x27;s? How do we split the teams? 
Also, if the clients need to approve the designs, how do we integrate UX&#x2F;UI into a cross-functional team? Wouldn&#x27;t this put in risk the sprint? Should we ditch scrum and pick something else?<p>I know, so many questions but would really appreciate if anyone can share some info&#x2F; experiences!<p>Thank you
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EnderMB
I've worked at an agency that went fully into Agile and Scrum.

When it worked well, we had a single sprint board with different product
backlogs, with different PO's for each product (where possible). All dev work
would go onto a single sprint board, and we'd all attack the highest priority
story (where possible) until the dev work was complete. UX/UI were introduced
into the team, and when it worked best they worked with the frontend
developers to create designs and prototypes to be signed off, and this went
through typical backlog grooming until it was ready to go fully into the
sprint.

In my experience, Scrum only works in an agency environment when "the process"
is strict. All ceremonies/meetings run for the amount of time required, all
clients are aware of the process and have a product owner on hand to speak to,
standups are kept short and purely as a technical update, rather than a
reporting meeting, and sprints are worked out properly and never overloaded,
with sprint points being adjusted based on velocity.

When we stuck to this process, everything worked brilliantly, and the way we
worked felt more robust. Instead of everything coming across the line in one
go, we were testing and releasing individual stories on time, and when things
inevitably changed we adjusted where needed or told the client to wait until
the next sprint.

Of course, over time our management took liberties. Standups were attended by
account managers (who decided they were no longer product owners) and turned
into 30 mins+ reporting meetings, sprint retros and reviews stopped, and
sprint planning was reduced to an hour. Additionally, we were asked to deliver
part-way through a sprint and to deliver to UAT with no testing. The
difference in delivery was night and day. We went from a team that could
deliver quickly with ample testing time and enough of a break between sprints
to not feel stressed, to a team of cowboys that deliver buggy code.

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quintes
Is it the same projects/ code for all clients? If so do they get the same
built product? 1 backlog.

Different code for different clients? Many backlogs.

Projects share code base maybe?

Then you need Prioritization, planning and if you don't have that as a
prerequisite then do Kanban maybe.

It sounds like you cannot split the team and depending you could just have 1
product owner or a proxy PO.

If clients need to approve designs that's design and backlog grooming- once
the story is ready move it into a ready state (tag or state attribute)

If you're reactive then kanban works better than sprints but of course depends
on your environment, product/project mix, support vs product dev, and team
composition

