This series will take you through most of the essentials of the Scrum framework, I will dive into how it could be used better by applying the theory and principles.
It may help you and your teams with a better way of working, it may highlight some gaps for you and your teams. That’s my only true intention.
This second part is an “Introduction” for this Better Scrum series, Define Scrum.
I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I had the pleasure writing and sharing it. All and any feedback is welcome and appreciated.
Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems.
In a nutshell, …
Scrum is simple…
Maybe that was enough to stop reading the Scrum Guide, it’s light, easily described in a few lines, and it’s simple.
Maybe we have a Winner here, maybe we should just look at the mechanics and implement it, that would be easy.
Why bother with the other 12 pages.
Even though Scrum is defined as lightweight, if it is added to the same way of working then it will, well do just that, add to the same way of working, and that will result in just increasing complexity, starving the people of valuable time like starving a garden of the water needed resulting in dead plants. Nothing will improve.
Scrum however is not a full “way of working” that removes the “old way” and replaces it completely with a “new way”, Scrum is a framework that only gives high level guidance for organising the way of working and thus leaves many parts open and free to be added to the context where it is used. Some criticise the lack of prescription in Scrum, that’s ok, however Scrum engages people to discover a way of working that enables them to achieve better outcomes.
There are many additional practices that could be added to Scrum, many are interpreted as a one-to-one replacement of previous traditional ways, in projects we used X, in Scrum we use Y. Traditional way of thinking looks for the simple solution of remove/replace, it certainly would be easier if it just boiled down to replacing X with Y, but that is all you are going to do, replace X with Y, achieving the same outcomes and thus not get the benefits that Scrum has to offer.
Scrum is an alternative to a Project Management way of working, replacing any heavyweight processes with a lightweight framework and building on it.
How?
Great question, let’s look closer.
Often Scrum teams use what worked well in a previous context, sometimes because they see it as Scrum, sometimes as it is our traditional way of thinking, the copy/paste solution is quick and efficient, using previous experience should work in theory, but is it effective?
Maybe that’s a Werewolf I see.
Silver bullets, like copy/paste solutions, are a way of creating safety. In a horror movie for example, a silver bullet is treasured as the solution that works, and maybe it does. Except when it comes to the crunch, we fumble the gun, fumble the bullet, we panic, the werewolf is not dead, the safety the bullet gave us only reassured us that there is nothing to worry about if unexpected things happen, like actually having to confront that Werewolf and the challenge was to avoid a negative outcome.
Adding things to Scrum just because they worked previously theoretically allow teams to get on with the job. In practice though, it strips the team of choice, and choice is fundamental for fostering a better way of working.
People are excited at the start of a new team, they are optimist, they are open, they are smiling, they are happy to have a new work adventure for many months and maybe even years ahead, their enthusiasm can overwhelm them to the point of accepting anything without realising the difficulties ahead.
The people pleasing syndrome can take over and many people could just say “Yes” to most things suggested without considering the effects, these people generally engage less and might not challenge the way.
Saying just Yes and trusting in experience with suggestions is a traditional way of thinking, it’s black or white, there is no grey, people may refrain to inspect and adapt for fear of not pleasing those that suggested. Those that suggested may not see the damage being done and may stand their ground not seeing another’s point of view as equal. It’s a dangerous road to take and bad things will happen.
The opposite of the people pleasing syndrome is not good either, it could be individualism, it could be something else, whatever it is, it is not about diagnosing people and labelling them, it is about finding a balance where people matter, and people come first.
Does Challenge mean either yes or no?
Challenge, as in challenging ideas, is only a hypothesis until evidence is gained.
Scrum teams whether at their first sprint or after many sprints should start or could restart with the basics of Scrum, they can experiment adding practices, not too many in one shot as this will probably generate so much complexity and misalignment due to the differences of individual experiences, even on the same practice.
Adding practices to Scrum as an experiment will foster a better way of working for the team in their specific context, and rarely two contexts are the same, different people, different product, different customer, to name a few obvious ones.
Maybe try for a few sprints and be open that it is the subject for inspection, how did the experiment go, what ways could we improve this experiment, should we continue with this experiment, or should we try something else, what else could we try.
Experiment to challenge a hypothesis, measure to get evidence, validate or invalidate the hypothesis, make a better-informed decision.
Experimenting should be the whole team’s way of thinking, aligning with that first, and the team may have started their agile journey, together.
There is no one solution to doing agile frameworks, there is no magic wand or silver bullet, doing Scrum is mechanical, using Scrum can help you to be Agile, perfect does not exist, perfect Scrum only exists in theory.
Scrum defines that all people are involved, people, teams and organizations, all of which are People.
Start with the People, that means with the Culture, and Culture is organic like a garden, if you care and tend to the needs, the garden will flourish.
Define Scrum?
Defining “what is Scrum” and “what is not Scrum” is key to knowing what to experiment and what to use as a guide to build a better way of working in an organic manner that involves People working together defining a Culture.
There is a better way of using the Scrum framework, the next part in this series will look at Scrum Theory.
There are always more emergent practices and better ways to work, that’s how we all learn, by sharing.
by Elementor Pro
