In general, I would strongly recommend starting with doing Scrum strictly by-the-book, even though it may hurt initially. Don't try to tweak the process too ear

In general, I would strongly recommend starting with doing Scrum strictly by-the-book, even though it may hurt initially. Don't try to tweak the process too early, or you are likely to fall back into bad habits. (You will very much need everyone's buy-in for that, which includes the acceptance that it may be a bumpy road.) To be clear, I'm not a great believer in Scrum as such, and certainly not part of the "if it doesn't work you're doing it wrong" school. However, I have found Scrum by-the-book to be an excellent way of very quickly identifying every obstacle that stops you from being truly Agile, because it simply doesn't allow you to sweep inconvenient truths under the rug. Scrum makes every weakness and dysfunction painfully obvious. What you do with that can then be your choice (including ditching Scrum because it doesn't match your needs, which is perfectly valid), but at least it will be a choice, and not something that "just happens". And whatever you do, do not skip the Retrospective. When it comes to building a functional team, that's the most important part, everything else is just a crutch. Basically, putting 7 smart and motivated engineers in a room and having them review their own processes every iteration will most likely also get you there.