With the term startup we usually associate starting a new company and pursuing a new idea with a small, creative team. While Scrum has been used for many years in startup companies – companies with a limited operating history – I have found that setting up a Scrum team as a “startup” within an established enterprise is a powerful approach to create a new product, and to pilot a new way of working.
A Scrum Startup consists of the product owner, the ScrumMaster and the development team. Together, they form is a self-contained unit that is loosely coupled to the rest of the organisation and in charge of developing and releasing the product. The product owner acts as an intrapreneur, an entrepreneur within the larger organisation.
The Scrum Startup
An Enterprise Scrum Startup
The first Scrum project I helped run in 2004 had ambitious plans: It was tasked with creating a new enterprise telecommunications software product. The company had high hopes for the product: It was considered vital to the business group’s future. To create an environment that encouraged innovation and creativity, we opened up a new development site, and assembled a new team.
We also made sure that the product owner was able to act as an intrapreneur and received the backing from senior management. The individual had a product vision and a budget to turn the vision into reality. The Scrum Startup controlled the product under development including the development and test environment, and it experienced few changes to the team composition. The individuals had a personal stake in the outcome: Everybody desperately wanted the new product to succeed knowing that it would shape future of the group.
We didn’t quite realise it, but we had created a startup within a well-established, large enterprise: Siemens, a company which has more than 420 000 employees and is over one hundred years old. The resulting product became part of OpenScape Unified Communications. It has won a number of awards, and is still selling well.
Autonomy
Setting up a Scrum team as a startup is so powerful as it disentangles the team from the rest of the organisation. Think of a Scrum Startup as a new house in the enterprise village, or a new tree in the corporate garden.
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