Mostly Fiction – 5 minutes read
1 week ago, we just set sail out of Toulon. What is our destination?.
Well firstly let’s frame up what our Captain Florent Prost had in mind when we met him in the Jolly Roger in Toulouse.
I have received direct orders from our Emperor Napoleon III to explore a safer, faster alternative to the Cape of Good Hope, and thus establish further the Reign of our Empire through Commerce.
The Captain went on.
The new route to India has been completed, no longer will we need to sail around Cape of Good Hope, we can now explore a safer, faster route through the Mediterrenean Sea directly to the Red Sea.
We were curious, astonished, and drank lots that evening as we set out an initial plan.
As our plan emerged that evening at the Jolly Roger, we felt that our Unnamed One fitted the role perfectly due to his long experience on the high seas and as a temporary navigator for some previous Captains.
During our proposition, the captain had no objections, and the Unnamed One wasn’t very talkative, said nothing, and it was thus consensual!
We all stood and raised our choppes in hand, except, he stayed seated and watched us, maybe a bit of a cold look, who knows.
Fit up the the Galleon, Get a crew, Get Provisions, Ready the Ship, Stock up on Arms, Train the Crew, Test the Galleon on the Rade de Toulon.
We had some trouble on achieving our Goals, but nothing we didn’t learn from, our trusty Captain and our Unnamed One were always there to help us navigate through our problems and help us find our solutions.
Also known as the crew that set sail from Toulon.
We are on our heading, it started last week, our destination as inspiringly shared by Florent was Explore a safer, faster and easier route across the Mediterranean Sea to the Suez Canal.
With only three Masts, we included an ambitious idea to work on building a fourth Mast, our speed would increase, something that we could not have done before as it would have delayed us from setting sail out of port.
Everyone was pulling their weight, everyone was doing their best, we had small troubles and we navigated around these easily, the last was a close shave two days ago around the shores of southern Crete. A scraping noise was heard but seemed nothing to worry about.
The building of our fourth Mast is making good progress.
Today, we have a big problem though. That scraping noise we had heard two days ago, started becoming serious, a small crack has started leaking water inside the hull, we were managing well and keeping it under control, repairs had started although they were not going as easily as we expected, other cracks in the hull were becoming visible.
Already many things were being abandoned this morning, and we have just finished the Inspection of our work, what everyone is doing and that no one is taking a nap unless needed.
Our Captain awaited our signal that all is in order and that we were ready to continue with our duties set out for the day. The Daily thus ended, well almost.
Something was not well understood by all and our dearest Captain Florent was ready to give us the direction.
I did not realise what was happenening, but I have spent yesterday and this morning reflecting about the situation and we must make this repair to the hull top priority. We must change our heading, we must change our Goal this Sprint.
Our Unnamed One reminded the captain that our rules that we all learned allow us to accomodate these changes.
We have set sail for Suez Canal, we are on heading, must we go back to France?
To which our beloved Captain replied, No we must find a solution now to our problem and then continue on.
Ok we do not need to abandon our Sprint Goal.
A lot of work has been defined to build our Mast, none are finished yet, maybe some of the work can be dropped for now?
To which our Captain replied, Yes.
The team started inspecting all the work, what could be dropped, what should be retained, and the new work that was of highest priority.
The new plan emerged
– Set sail for port at Rhodes Island
– Continue repairs of the hull
– Those that can help with repairing the hull, must do
– Those that cannot help repairing the hull can finish their tasks on building the fourth Mast
The Unnamed One congratulated the whole team on being so flexible and willing to adapt to the urgent problems.
The whole team knew what they were going to be doing, and everyone went back to work to get the job done.
🛑 Obsolete Sprint Goals. A Sprint Goal may become obsolete, if so the Sprint should be cancelled, A Sprint Review should immediately take place followed by a Sprint Retrospective before starting a new Sprint with Sprint Planning.
⚠️ Cancelling Sprints. Cancelling Sprints is dangerous, avoid doing this as it damages team engagement.
✅ Negotiate the Sprint Backlog. A Sprint Goal involves scope from the Sprint Backlog, the scope can be negotiated without endangering the Sprint Goal.
✅ Uncertainty. Sprint Goals should be achievable and flexible to cater for Unknown Unknowns.
✅ Scrum Values. When we embody the Scrum Values, the three pillars of Empiricism come to life.
🛑 Scrum can Fail. Without Transparency, Scrum will fail, Inspecting without Transparency is misleading and wasteful, Inspection without Adaptation is considered pointless.
A big thank you to Geoff Watts for his valuable feedback and suggestions
by Elementor Pro
