We are a small development team of 3. We are responsible for the design, development, test, and publish of each software application. We also provide software support, and deal with any issues the users may have, as well as bug fixing.
At the moment, each developer is solely responsible for seeing a project through from start to finish. So they will discuss with the client the requirements for the software. They will plan, design, and develop the software (both front-end and back-end). And they are responsible for testing and bug fixing.
Is this a development process that is recommended or should each developer be designated a number of tasks on each project?
I have been thinking of applying SCRUM principles to our development process but not sure how effective they would be. From what we do I gether that we are already working in an agile methodology with short iterations, and requirement discussions with the client?
Would you recommend SCRUM for our environment? How do other small teams operate?
It depends what is your purpose: implementing Agile just because it is the newest 'fashion' might prove to be very costly for your existing business.
In my experience (almost 15 years, now) it is better to implement Agile all around the company, not only at Tech level (or DevOps as they are now calling it).
If you implement any Agile method in a development environment than you simply get a bit more efficiency in that environment, only! A coder can not write more than that number of lines a day. Than, because the rest of the business is still at 'waterfall' your development side becomes a bottleneck by having to lag because of the rest...
In your particular case, perhaps it would be a good idea to get together with the developers and ask them: Agile or status quo? Once ALL of you agree for Agile than just go for it - first do it by the book and after a few sprints just start adapting what you need to your given situation. Perhaps a bit of pair-programming, a bit of cross-collaboration etc At the end of the day you are only three people: how difficult can it be to obtain consensus? funny