Do Good Scrum – It's Time To Focus
I do not intend to inflict harm on any kittens. Quite the contrary! I love the furry little creatures so much that I want to protect them. And I love Scrum. I really love it when people do good scrum. It is a results oriented process that can deliver business results much more quickly than traditional methods. If used as directed.
A controversial statement I made in a Certified ScrumMaster class last year was, “every time you do bad Scrum a kitten will die.”
I do not intend to inflict harm on any kittens. Quite the contrary! I love the furry little creatures so much that I want to protect them. And I love Scrum. I really love it when people do good scrum. It is a results oriented process that can deliver business results faster than traditional methods. If used as directed.
But so many people attempting Scrum turn a blind eye to the culture change, dig their heels in and try to force their status quo onto Scrum. By definition Scrum is different. That is how it can deliver faster than other methods.
Jeff Sutherland is a smart guy. If he thought that there was a need for a “Sprint 0” that produced nothing but requirements, he would have included it in the framework. There is a reason that it does not exist – because by definition a Sprint should produce a working product increment. Not a document. Not a Product Backlog.
So why do people make things up that do not exist? If the organization is not ready to commit to the work, why waste the team’s time with activities that the Product Owner and ScrumMaster are capable of addressing? The team could be executing something that does deliver a potential shippable product increment or something of value to your customers.
Do people make up structures in Scrum that do not exist such as Sprint 0 because they do not understand that the Product Owner is empowered to frame up a Vision? A Roadmap? A Product Backlog? Why abdicate these activities to the team who is supposed to be developing the product?
So why bother with Scrum at all? If your current process is making your customers happy, don’t change a thing. But if you want to try something different, why not respect the process as it was intended to be adopted and not make things up.
Come and learn from the Collaborative Leadership Team as we get back to doing good Scrum at our upcoming Certified Scrum Training classes.
#dogoodscrum
Author: Collaborative Leadership Team. Learn more about our coaches and offerings here.
Transforming Using the Scrum Framework
What about transforming into using the Scrum Framework? One of the most common questions, we at Collaborative Leadership Team (a Certified Agile Consultancy in Minneapolis, MN receive when coaching or training clients on Scrum is, “We’d like to do Scrum, but avoid doing this or that” In this case, “this” or “that” refers to any of the simple artifacts, ceremonies or roles that make up the Scrum framework.
Have you thought about transforming your organization using the Scrum Framework? One of the most common questions we, Collaborative Leadership Team, receive when coaching or training clients on Scrum is, “We’d like to do Scrum, but how do we avoid doing this or that?" In this case, “this” or “that” refers to any of the simple artifacts, ceremonies or roles that make up the Scrum framework.
You can’t transform half-way.
Scrum is fundamentally about changing the way that people work. In fact, the vision of the Scrum Alliance, the certifying body for Scrum, is to “Transform the World of Work”. One interesting aspect of this vision, beyond its scope, is the word “transform”.
“Transform” is defined by Merriam-Webster’s as “to change in composition or structure”. This word implies that something that has undergone a transformation is fundamentally different than what it was before the event that transformed it. While a butterfly is born from a caterpillar following metamorphosis, it bears little resemblance to the furry, little larvae from which it came as it flies away on a summer night.
So, too, do the organizations that adopt Scrum. While their value proposition remains unchanged, how they approach delivering on that value proposition is remarkably different with Scrum. It’s not just the few artifacts, ceremonies or roles. It’s a different set of values that changes how an organization delivers value to the market. This is the crucial difference that the people asking the above question miss. Just as a caterpillar can’t become half a butterfly, an organization that seeks to fundamentally change cannot do so half-way.
If you’d like to learn more about Scrum and how you can help change the structure of your work by becoming a Certified ScrumMaster, click here to learn more about our Certified Scrum Master (CSM) course.
Author: Collaborative Leadership Team. Learn more about our coaches and offerings here.
Avoiding "CAP" with Scrum Training
One of the most common questions, we at Collaborative Leadership Team (a Certified Agile Consultancy in Minneapolis, MN ) receive when coaching or training clients on Scrum is, “What does Scrum say about that?” or “How can going through Scrum Training help that?” In this case, “that” refers to any number of topics including, but not limited to, job titles, compensation, organizational structures and reporting relationships.
One of the most common questions, we at Collaborative Leadership Team (a Certified Agile Consultancy in Minneapolis, MN ) receive when coaching or training clients on Scrum is, “What does Scrum say about that?” or “How can going through Scrum Training help that?” In this case, “that” refers to any number of topics including, but not limited to, job titles, compensation, organizational structures and reporting relationships.
Scrum, much like Waterfall-based product development methods, does not specify an approach to these topics. While some use this lack of specificity to reject Scrum, I believe they are missing one of the key benefits of Scrum. Scrum doesn’t tell you how to run your company. Scrum doesn’t prescribe how you organize your company. Scrum doesn’t tell you what titles people should have or how they should be compensated.
Instead, Scrum training provides a simple framework allowing you to regularly develop working product meetings or, hopefully, exceed the needs of your users. What you choose to add to the framework is based on your unique situation. This freedom is a manifestation of the Simplicity principle supporting Agile methods – “maximize the amount of work not done”.
This principle, and the freedom that comes with it, scares those that reject Scrum. They are afraid the many activities they have been engaging in – things like developing long, detailed requirements documents, testing only at the end of the development process and waiting 12+ months to deploy software – aren’t valuable. When they are confronted with the simplicity of Scrum and singular goal of developing working software, they realize they have been engaged in “CAP”, they have been “Confusing Activity with Progress”.
The Scrum framework peels away activities, processes and tools causing teams and organizations to engage in “CAP”. Once a Team has stripped away of all these items and starts with the foundation provided by the framework, it can add back those items that truly add value, leading to working software people want to use via a series of experiments.
People shouldn’t fear Scrum or its simplicity – both allow them to maximize value while managing and minimizing CAP.
If you’d like to learn more about Scrum and attend Scrum Training to learn how it can help your organization avoid CAP check out our class options here.
Author: Collaborative Leadership Team. Learn more about our coaches and offerings here.