F R E E DO MU S I N G S C R U M T O U N LO C K YOU R F U L L P OT E N T I AL

Andrew T Keener, MBA | CSM, CSPOE M A I L : AND RE WT HOM AS KE E N E R M BA@GM AI L .C OMBLOG : KE E NE RST RAT E GY. C OM TW I TTE R: @KE E NE RS TRATE GY

SC R U M D R I V E S F R E E D O M F R O M :

• The tyranny of the urgent

• Fear of making mistakes

• Business as usual

• Process rigidity

TH E T Y RANNY OF TH E URG E NT

FR E E DO M FR O M

• A key goal of the Scrum transformation is breaking the parent-child relationship between "business" and "development".

• Technical planning, implementation, commitment, and delivery is in the hands of the team

• Meanwhile. the Product Owner provides a single priority-order backlog of consolidated items from stakeholders, users, and the developers, for the team to plan around.

TH E T Y RANNY OF TH E URG E NT

FR EE DO M FR OM

• If major items frequently pop up mid-week on a "release train" that deploys weekly:

• The team leaves room in their commitment for these items

• The Product Owner sets realistic expectations with stakeholders on which release will include the request

• This is part of the power of Lean planning for making strategic product and release decisions - once the Minimum Viable Product is in the open market, data from the users can determine urgency of backlog items.

• Through frequent releases, everyone can relax and look at the big picture, free from the fear arbitrary deadlines and urgent pivots.

TH E T Y RANNY OF TH E URG E NT

FR EE DO M FR OM

QU ES T I ON S T O C ON S I DER:

• What is the right Sprint length for your teams?

• Do you have a deliberate approach to technical debt repayment?

• Do you have trouble fitting urgent Production issues into the Sprint Cycle?

TH E T Y RANNY OF TH E URG E NT

FR EE DO M FR OM

FE A R OF M A K I N G M I S TA KE S

FR E E DO M FR O M

• The fear of making mistakes is overcome through the key roles defined by Scrum. A role is the confluence of empowerment, responsibility, and accountability for One Big Thing that rests on the shoulders of a single person.

• Note, these are NOT by necessity positions or titles.

• Teams are free to voice ideas because the Scrum framework encourages collaborative implementation planning, cross-functional brainstorming, and constant discovery of best practices.

FE A R OF M A K I N G M I S TA KE S

FR EE DO M FR OM

• In XP Pair Programming, this collaboration is maximized as a single screen and keyboard gets two minds and four eyes that can converse on best practices, mitigate against knowledge silos, and build team relationships.

• The user story - as the building block of incremental product delivery - isolates risk of mistakes to the smallest valuable user interaction.

• Continuous integration ensures that when a new increment is not "potentially shippable" it can be easily taken out until additional iteration is completed.

FE A R OF M A K I N G M I S TA KE S

FR EE DO M FR OM

• The team, huddled around their complex problem to solve, has the Product Owner as the proxy to the users and stakeholders.

• The team is free to determine one small solution at a time, just-in-time, and just-enough; then iterate or pivot.

• When tough decisions need to be made, the Product Owner makes the call, relying on the expertise of the team, sets expectations, and maintains accountability.

FE A R OF M A K I N G M I S TA KE S

FR EE DO M FR OM

QU ES T I ON S T O C ON S I DER:

• What is the best way to ensure knowledge-sharing?

• When is Pair Programming the best option?

• How is accountability scaled beyond the PO/Team relationship in a large project?

FE A R OF M A K I N G M I S TA KE S

FR EE DO M FR OM

B U S IN E S S A S U S U A LFR E E DO M FR O M

• When things go wrong in a large Waterfall project, multiple helpless Project Managers ask for updates but are unable to check boxes, development teams are powerless to drive the direction of the product, and stakeholders become progressively frustrated by the unfinished pit into which money is being thrown.

Then the project is cancelled!

• What is missing here? JOY! Menlo Innovation's Richard Sheridan and author Joy, Inc. describes the importance of team joy in an interview with InfoQ:

“There is in fact tangible business value to joy. But understand this: our focus is external to the organization. What we want more than anything else is that the work of our hearts, our hands, and our minds gets out into the world and delights people. That's our definition of joy. We want somebody to stop us on the sidewalk and say, "That thing you built, I love it. Thank you. You made my life better."

B U S IN E S S A S U S U A LFR EE DO M FR OM

• The move from cancelled projects to meaningful user feedback has an incredible impact on an organization.

• The drive to constantly improve, tighten feedback loops, and evolve through empirical process control will make disruption the norm and remove the fear of inevitable change and new ideas.

B U S IN E S S A S U S U A LFR EE DO M FR OM

QU ES T I ON S T O C ON S I DER:

• How do we move from team boredom to team JOY?

• How is stagnation of ideas avoided?

• What unorthodox Scrum practices have driven new and exciting insights for you?

B U S IN E S S A S U S U A LFR EE DO M FR OM

P R O C E S S R I G ID I T YFR E E DO M FR O M

• There are three overarching goals driven by the roles, ceremonies, and artifacts in Scrum:

• Notice ineffective processes, workflows, or behaviors quickly and cease them.

• Notice effective processes, workflows, or behaviors communicate this knowledge

• Recommending new processes or practices that can be tested for the length of a sprint

P R O C E S S R I G ID I T YFR EE DO M FR OM

• At the business and enterprise level, the same processes should occur.

• While the empirical methodology monitoring "the process" is held constant (a mix of lean, XP, and other function-specific practices), the practices that are monitored within "the process" are under constant review at the team, business, and enterprise levels.

P R O C E S S R I G ID I T YFR EE DO M FR OM

QU ES T I ON S T O C ON S I DER:

• How and when are you identifying and evaluating “best practices” that aren’t “the best” anymore?

• How do you encourage scaling that is modular and object-oriented? http://www.scruminc.com/scrum_at_scale_part_i

• Have you dropped “legacy” checkboxes and chores?

P R O C E S S R I G ID I T YFR EE DO M FR OM

T H ANK YO U

Andrew T Keener, MBA | CSM, CSPOE M A I L : AND RE WT HOM AS KE E N E R M BA@GM AI L .C OMBLOG : KE E NE RST RAT E GY. C OM TW I TTE R: @KE E NE RS TRATE GY