My thoughts about Scrum

Effective team organization does not need Scrum

Firstly, having someone who thinks architecturally is crucial to ensure the team's long-term and big picture goals are met. This person could be titled as a team lead, senior developer, architect, or principal, but their title is less important than their responsibility for facilitating conversations that make solid architectural decisions as a team. They can also optimize developer velocity by looking for opportunities to improve code quality, reviews, collaboration, processes, tooling, continuous integration, deployments, etc.

Secondly, communication is key. You don't need a daily standup or formal retrospectives, but you do need to communicate often and regularly discuss improvement opportunities. Breaking work down into small tickets and estimating future flow by tracking the number of tickets completed per week can be useful in avoiding the estimation overhead and short-term thinking fostered by sprints.

Lastly, breaking tickets down into small pieces has multiple benefits. It reduces risk, increases flow, enables developers to work in parallel, and makes code reviews more approachable.

In conclusion, effective team organization requires a person who thinks architecturally, regular communication, and breaking work down into small tickets. With these tips in mind, your team can deliver higher quality code and move faster without the burden of sprints.