YDS: What is a Pod?

YDS: What is a Pod? Let's explore the options this situation presents. This and more are discussed in today's episode of Your Daily Scrum with Todd Miller and Ryan Ripley.
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[@nickimours8179]

In my organization I'm technically considered the "Pod leader". I manage a group of 5 data analysts as a part of our larger Analytics Team. The term was "assigned" to me and my group based on an experience working with our IT group that had a structure where they were dedicating IT teams that would be embedded to different segments of the organization (not with a formal reporting structure in that org). A full-time pod was to enable different business units to move faster and drive more value. In theory, the pods would consist of a Scrum Master, Data Engineer, Data Scientist, and Data Visualization. All this said, that I don't know where the term originated (most likely not in my organization), but that's how it was being used. That structure has since dissolved as the IT leader who was championing it left the company and I am now stuck with a "legacy" term for my group.

[@curtispenner3973]

Interesting topic because my new company, the product group is pushing the idea of Pods and it sounds like we're going to give it a shot. The setup is somewhat different than what you guys talked about, although when I Googled Pods originally, I had the same ideas you guys had. What they're pushing is the idea of Scrum Teams live inside a Pod. So there would be 1-3 Scrum Teams within the Pod, with the ideal being 2, and there are Pod members that are shared between the teams, think UI/UX, engineering managers, etc.. The idea is that the Pod is self sustaining and the teams should never have to go outside their pod for anything. We haven't actually implemented it, so I don't have anything concrete on Pros and Cons, but we're going to give it shot. I have some concerns and have voiced them, but I'm moving forward with the lets try it and see what problems we see and if we need to revert, then we'll do that. We are a start up that was created from a divestiture so we're small now, with one product that has multiple offerings so the idea is that the teams would work on a functional area of product and that would be the Pod. I'm curious to see how this scales out as we do it, but I'm always willing to give new things a shot.

[@AgileforHumans]

This seems like something you should read: www.scrum.org/resources/scrum-studio-model-innovation.

[@marymiller1253]

Okay, well it's good to know I am in good company. Usually, when I see pod, I think someone is using the Spotify Model. In my organization, they are using SAFe and the Spotify Model (I think). When they originally said pod, I thought that meant I was going to get a Scrum Team or a dedicated team. What I ended up with was a project team of people who are not 100% dedicated. Apparently, it was expected that I also manage the leave of the team members as well although I do not have the authority to put that in a particular system or sign off on leave. That was also not consistent with the Spotify Model. Most of the time, we don't use the term pod in conversations except for 1-2 managers.

[@ckmahato9]

By any chance you guys got the answer for ceremonies word, exactly who started it or so?🙏

[@eastcoast4233]

Using scrums and agile outside of IT/tech contexts ?

[@5amMesterScrum]

Lots of organization are so against something that they change the words so they can say they are not doing it but they really are: pods - scrum teams - teams or like Daily Scrum - Daily Standups (DSU) - huddles - Standups

[@AgileforHumans]

Agreed! Change the words and we don't need to change as much.

[@danielricardoulloaospina3670]

At my workplace, the term "pod" emerged recently as we started expanding into different teams. The issue I'm facing, and the reason why I ended up here, is that one pod is 100% dedicated to migrating the Frontend from Angular to React, another "pod" consists solely of Java devs in automation, another "pod" of data engineers, another "pod" of Infrastructure, and my team, which each sprint aims to deliver incremental product improvements. Just as it's a term for Scrum Team, I think there's no harm in calling them pods, right? Where it starts to get interesting is that each "Pod" is deciding which Framework is better, so one is Scrumban, another is Kanban, and two are Scrum. There are no dependencies yet, but given the nature or specialization of these teams, there will be, and I think we're going to crash. Any ideas or suggestions?

[@rajadas6432]

If we value more about agility what’s more important? Common taxonomy or common understanding? Down the line if scrum guide is appended to term the scrum teams to product builder team/pods, what would be your stance? Your experience is invaluable and thanks for sharing with us. However often times I feel you are promoting rigid concepts aligned to textbook scrum rather than flexibility. Care to share your thoughts on this topic? Thanks

[@Duci1989]

Talking about terms that are confusing, how about “feature lead”?

[@AgileforHumans]

That is pretty confusing 😂

[@tomaszniemiec]

🛬 A Pod? Never heard about this, so I'm curious. 🛫 To be honest, I don't even remember this in the Spotify model. Tribes, Chapters, Guilds, but not Pods. But maybe this could be a good series or an idea for one video, about the things we make in Scrum harder than they are. And the other way around, what is usually described as easy, but is actually really hard to do.

[@l_combo]

We use it as the name for a cross-functional team in the same meaning as squad used by ING who were inspired by Spotify's engineering culture. Can you call a cross-functional team that may or may not use scrum, the team is cross-functional but may be doing Kanban or something else... I see the need for a word that is devoid of scrum TM that explains the notion of the cross-functional team.

[@alexandrosntalachanis7148]

What's gonna happen when kids in the future google "What's an iPod?" and you guys come up?

[@AgileforHumans]

We might get a lot of views 🤣