What are some effective strategies for managing dependencies in Scrum projects?

1 Identify dependencies early

One of the first steps to manage dependencies in Scrum projects is to identify them as early as possible, preferably during the product backlog refinement or sprint planning sessions. By identifying dependencies, you can prioritize the work that has the most impact or dependency on other tasks, features, or deliverables, and plan accordingly. You can use various tools and techniques to identify dependencies, such as dependency maps, dependency matrices, or dependency diagrams. These tools can help you visualize and communicate the dependencies among the items in your product backlog or sprint backlog, and how they affect the scope, schedule, and quality of your project.

2 Communicate dependencies clearly

Another important strategy to manage dependencies in Scrum projects is to communicate them clearly and frequently to all the relevant parties, such as the product owner, the Scrum master, the development team, and other stakeholders. By communicating dependencies, you can ensure that everyone is aware of the expectations, assumptions, and constraints that affect the work, and that they can coordinate and collaborate effectively to resolve any issues or conflicts. You can use various channels and formats to communicate dependencies, such as Scrum boards, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, sprint retrospectives, or cross-team meetings. These channels and formats can help you share and update the status, progress, and challenges of the dependent tasks, features, or deliverables, and solicit feedback and support from others.

3 Minimize dependencies as much as possible

A third strategy to manage dependencies in Scrum projects is to minimize them as much as possible, by applying the principles and practices of agile methodologies, such as simplicity, autonomy, and self-organization. By minimizing dependencies, you can reduce the complexity, uncertainty, and risk of your project, and increase the flexibility, adaptability, and efficiency of your work. You can use various methods and approaches to minimize dependencies, such as breaking down large and complex tasks, features, or deliverables into smaller and independent ones, aligning the work with the value streams and customer journeys, empowering the teams to make decisions and solve problems, and leveraging reusable and modular components and architectures.

5 Review and improve dependencies continuously

A fifth strategy to manage dependencies in Scrum projects is to review and improve them continuously, by inspecting and adapting your work and processes based on the feedback and data that you collect and analyze from the dependencies. By reviewing and improving dependencies continuously, you can ensure that you are delivering the best possible value to your customers and stakeholders, and that you are improving your performance and quality as a Scrum team and as a Scrum organization. You can use various tools and mechanisms to review and improve dependencies continuously, such as metrics and indicators, feedback loops, retrospectives and action plans, and experiments and innovations.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?