Optimal Development Team size is small enough to remain nimble and large enough to complete significant work within a Sprint.
Fewer than three Development Team members decrease interaction and results in smaller productivity gains. Smaller Development Teams may encounter skill constraints during the Sprint, causing the Development Team to be unable to deliver a potentially releasable Increment.
Having more than nine members requires too much coordination. Large Development Teams generate too much complexity for an empirical process to be useful.
The Product Owner and Scrum Master roles are not included in this count unless they are also executing the work of the Sprint Backlog.
The What is Scrum Blog Series are excerpts from the Scrum Guide by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. Offered for license under the Attribution Share-Alike license of Creative Commons, accessible at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode and also described in summary form at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.
- Scrum Foundations Course Video Series
- An Introduction to Scrum
- What Are the 3 Pillars of Scrum?
- What are the 5 Scrum Values?
- What is a Scrum Team?
- What is a Scrum Product Owner?
- What is a Scrum Development Team?
- What is the Ideal Size of a Scrum Development Team?
- What is a Scrum Master?
- What are the Scrum Events?
- What is a Sprint?
- Who can cancel a Sprint?
- What is Sprint Planning?
- What is a Sprint Goal?
- What is a Daily Scrum?
- What is a Sprint Review?
- What is a Sprint Retrospective?
- What are the Scrum Artifacts?
- What is a Product Backlog?
- What is Product Backlog Refinement or Grooming?
- What is a Sprint Backlog?
- What is a Product Increment?
- What is a Definition of “Done”?
- Who is Monitoring Progress?
- The Importance of Artifact Transparency