While you're probably not going to have a perfect team in a perfect environment as you start or continue your Scrum practices, I've provided a short checklist to help you identify the most important elements to help you as you begin:
Do you have a team whose members are dedicated to the project? Do the members represent a cross-section of skills and talents—everything necessary to build features for the customer?
Do you have a product owner? If not, can you find someone to play this role so that the team can get started working on the most important items?
Does the product owner have a product vision and a product backlog? (See Chapter 5, The End? Improving Product and Process One Bite at a Time, for more details)
Can you establish—at maximum—a 30-day sprint? Shorter if possible?
Can you get participation from business stakeholders in the sprint review? (Not a requirement, but sure to drive urgency and visibility to your team).
Do you feel courageous enough to communicate obstacles as they arise?
Can you help the team create and maintain the sprint backlog? (See Chapter 2, Release Planning – Tuning Product Development, for more details)
Can you commit to protecting the team from interruptions, no matter the interrupter?
