Innovation is about Doing: How Scrum Can Deliver
-
Upload
kristin-wolff -
Category
Government & Nonprofit
-
view
558 -
download
0
Transcript of Innovation is about Doing: How Scrum Can Deliver
INNOVATION IS ABOUT DOING: How Scrum can help deliver inspired results The guide provides an overview of Scrum, suggests a case for applying it to workforce development challenges, and offers a list of resources where you can learn more.
Prepared by: Kristin E. Wolff & Vinz Koller,
Social Policy Research Associates
March 2015
2 |
Table of Contents
3
This guide was created to support SPR’s Scrum Quickshop at the National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB) Annual Forum in March 2015. It provides a brief introduction to Scrum, offers lessons from a Scrum user, and cites a collection of multimedia resources that provides additional depth and breadth for those who want to give Scrum a go. If you are reading this prior to the Forum, please take this quick poll so we can design the session around your needs and interests: http://bit.ly/1AJ9jto
4 5 6 7 page page page page page
8 9 11 12 13 page page page page page
Introduction: Why Scrum?
The Problem: Too Many Waterfalls
A Solution: Scrum The Values, Ideas (and People) Behind Scrum
The Essentials of Scrum
Scrum and Workforce Development
Lessons from a Scrum Novice
Scrum in Ten Steps More About Scrum About Social Policy Research Associates (SPR)
3 |
Introduction: Why Scrum?
Scrum helped the FBI’s internal team do in 24 months with 5% of the total budget what Lockheed could not do in ten years with 90% of the budget: let the FBI access its own knowledge.
Scrum is a framework. It provides a structure that helps teams align around common goals, learn quickly (and collectively), and accelerate productivity so they can deliver more, better, faster, and with greater satisfaction than is common using traditional planning approaches.
Scrum is an antidote to many of the things that get in the way of group progress including: the tyranny of “the plan;” the blind-man-and-the- elephant problem (no one person able to see the big picture); sending information “up the chain” while awaiting decisions, and so on.
It’s not a panacea for all that ails, but if your goal is to accelerate human
progress – in particular, to move from idea to implementation quickly – Scrum can be a powerful ally.
Over the long run, Scrum builds trust and cultivates the kinds of habits that lead to effective collaboration and increase innovation capacity – high levels of engagement, the ability to identify and commit to shared goals, risk tolerance, and an explicit focus on learning and documentation. This enables organizations and teams to develop effective solutions to new problems, not once, but over and over again.
We’ll now take a quick look at the roots of Scrum together with its key components and find out why it is such a powerful way to support the way we work (and live) today.
4 |
The Problem: Too Many Waterfalls
Traditional project planning – using the waterfall method – can work where few variables are unknown. But as military generals, along with information technologists, have discovered, it is not well suited to developing new products and services or responding to unforeseen challenges. No matter how much planning occurs before project launch, unanticipated events and new ideas are inevitable. They can derail, delay, and otherwise compromise the ability of teams to move forward.
“I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
.
The waterfall method – so named because its reflection on a Gantt chart often looks much like a waterfall: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model
5 |
A Solution: Scrum
Scrum embraces uncertainty, treating every project as process of learning in which the product is tested and improved throughout its development. It offers a process for integrating changes (or not) and a method for dealing with barriers as they (inevitably) emerge.
“At its root, Scrum is based on a simple idea: whenever you start a project, why not regularly check in, see if what you’re doing is heading in the right direction, and if it’s actually what people want? And question whether there are any ways to improve how you’re doing what you’re doing, any ways of doing it better and faster, and what might be keeping you from doing that.”
Jeff Sutherland
6 |
The Values, Ideas (and People) Behind Scrum
Scrum prioritizes applied learning in service of excellence and efficiency:
§ It loves clarity and does not love waste.
§ It emphasizes taking in information that helps determine options for action (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act).
§ It rests on highly-engaged teams that are cross-functional (and not rooted in hierarchy), autonomous, empowered, and purpose-driven.
§ It employs a version of Deming’s long-tested Plan/Do/Check/Act cycle that build continuous improvement into the development process.
§ It forces priority setting, insists on focus, and uses precise language and metrics (e.g., “half-done is not done”) to guide activity.
§ It encourages mastery of process – and then invites creativity.
§ It is human – it builds on patterns of human behavior and cultivates trusted relationships, reducing the likelihood of political and social barriers that can interfere with team progress.
In 2001, a group of technology luminaries developed what has come to be known as “The Agile Manifesto” – a statement of four values and 12 principles intended to guide product development.
Scrum is a framework for putting these values into practice.
http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html
7 |
The Essentials of Scrum
Processes The Sprint is the defined time-period (one month or less) in which a goal is accomplished. This requires Sprint planning in which the goal is determined realistic and the definition of “done” is agreed upon by all team members.
The Daily Scrum is the 15-minute event in which team members meet to synchronize their activities in a structured way.
Reviews and Retrospectives are events that build learning and improvement into the Sprint process.
Technologies & Tools The Product Road Map (or Backlog) is a living document that serves as the sole source of information defining the product/project requirements
The Scrum Board is a large, visible, shared tracking systems in which team members document what needs doing, what is in process, and what is complete throughout the life of a Sprint.
People Teams are the main actors, not individuals. Heroes and heroic behaviors are unwelcome.
All people engaged in the process have clear roles: the Product Owner holds the vision and stewards the project; the Scrum Master guides team activity using Scrum tools and rules; and Team Members develop solutions iteratively, improving with each Sprint (and Sprint cycle). Members are responsible to one another independent of rank or hierarchy outside the team.
8 |
Scrum and Workforce Development
Can Scrum transform the way workforce partners collaborate? Help them to do more with less, build skills, and deliver more value to customers and stakeholders? Even have fun in the process? We think so.
Unemployment. Skills gaps. Employee engagement. Wage stagnation. Poverty.
We need better solutions to our most important workforce challenges. As stewards of workforce policy and resources, state and local workforce boards have important roles to play in identifying and prioritizing those challenges, and designing new solutions suited their communities.
Toward that end, workforce boards collaborate with partner agencies, businesses, and non-profit, philanthropic, and civic organizations –even with customers. They support
task forces, alliances, and increasingly, backbone organizations.
Such partnerships can yield important insights and bring new resources to shared goals.
But the gap between developing a shared strategy and implementing it can be significant, especially when the strategy spans organizations or political jurisdictions.
Scrum can help close this gap. It offers stakeholders practical ways to work together to accomplish big things in a short period of time. It can also provide a vehicle for engaging stakeholders in not just strategy and policy development, but in the design of programs and tools themselves.
Scrum is proven and it is scaleable. Over time, it can be transformative – helping turn innovation into a core competency rather than a special occasion.
Lessons from a Scrum Novice
We’ve experimented with Scrum in a variety of contexts:
• Within a nonprofit organization – at the Board level and collectively with staff
• Within a small private-‐sector firm
• In-‐person and at a distance
• During events not necessarily embedded in an everyday work context.
We’re sharing what we learned with the following caveats:
• We are self-‐taught – no certified Scrum Masters among us.
• We did not strictly adhere to all of the rules, nor did we adhere to all of the rules equally strictly.
• We collected lessons in real time and retrospectively, drawing from Scrum-‐like approaches we had used previously.
10 |
Scrum. Simple to understand. Tough to do. Worth a try.
Lesson #1: Much of the Scrum framework is simply good project management. Take the transparency that a Project Map (Backlog) invites. Simply making the entire list of tasks and progress visible vastly increased the frequency and relevance of communication among team members. (In contrast, when was the last time you collaborated effectively over a Gantt chart?)
Lesson #2: Hackers and Millennials were quick to embrace Scrum. Among the team members in a few projects were “camp” alumni – people who had participated in hackathons, barcamps, and similar intense personal or professional development experiences. For them, as well as for younger workers, Scrum felt familiar – the intensity, the team-orientation, the tools, etc. – and was quickly embraced. More senior team members tended to struggle with the absence of traditional leaders or predictable hierarchy, and felt the Sprints were, at times, too chaotic. But all team members responded positively to the intensity and focus of team activity.
Lesson #3: You can’t Sprint forever. Scrum is a framework for accelerating human progress. If it is a hammer, then not every human endeavor is a nail. It is most effective when thoughtfully employed – people, team, organizations need other ways of working together too.
Lesson #4: Adopting partial practices can work if the goal is as much about culture change as product delivery. We employed the basics – the map, the questions, the time-box, and the reviews, but we also shared the role of Scrum Master, shifted team members, and moved deadlines. The result was very high engagement – especially among the initial skeptics – and the products and speed of delivery exceeded expectations nearly every time. As importantly, the approach changed the way team members interacted with one another. After a few quick wins, “rank” disappeared. Scrum enabled unlikely teams to collaborate quickly and effectively on work that really mattered to their organizations, firms, Boards, professional fields, or to them as individuals.
“The combination of structure, creativity, and intensity helped us get much further than I thought we would in a couple of weeks. It was actually pretty fun.” Nonprofit Board Member and First-‐time Scrum participant.
11 |
Scrum in Ten Steps
1
What project in your portfolio lends itself to Scrum? Who is on your Scrum team? Get ready....
Source: Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time (Jeff Sutherland, 2014). These steps have been slightly modified from the original presented in the Appendix: Implementing Scrum—How to Begin.
2 3 4 5 Identify the Product Owner
6 7 8 9 10
Holds the vision and knows the risks/rewards
3-‐9 people with all the necessary skills
Serves as coach and barrier buster.
Everything that needs doing, prioritized.
Level of effort vs. value, definition of “done”
First scrum meeting – team defines length of sprint (usually 2-‐3 weeks) and scope of work
Scrum Board of three columns – Do , Doing, Done – populated with sticky notes
15 mins, 3 questions: What did you do yesterday? What will you do today? Are there any obstacles?
Public demonstration of what was accomplished during the sprint.
Process review after last sprint: What went well? What can be made better in next sprint?
Assemble the Team
Identify the Scrum Master
Define the Product Road Map
Develop real effort Estimate
Plan the Sprint
Make work Visible
Employ a Daily Scrum
Implement the Sprint Demo
Retrospect to inform next Sprint Cycle
12 |
For More Information
Things to Read Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time Jeff Sutherland, 2014
The Definitive Guide to Scrum: The Rules of the Game Ken Schwaber & Jeff Sutherland, 2013
Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything Steve Blank, 2013 http://bit.ly/1CJSs4A
Scrum: A Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction Chris Simms & Hillary Louise Johnson, 2012
The Best Kept Management Secret on the Planet: Agile Steve Denning in Forbes, 2012 (Accompanied by some nice links)http://onforb.es/1EU03jq
Websites
Scrum.org ScrumAlliance.org AgileLearningLabs.com
Things to Watch
Scrum: The Future of Work http://bit.ly/1Le8VEB
Scrum in Seven Minutes http://bit.ly/17rGpAl
Implementing Scrum in a Non-Engineering Team http://bit.ly/1AmdFmL
Things to Listen to
LabCast: Reaching Your Full Potential with Scrum http://bit.ly/19xS6Hd
A Tale of Two Scrums: Agile Done Right and Agile Gone Wrong http://bit.ly/1CJxu8D
Scrum One, Scrum All: Why Agile Isn’t Just for Technical Teams http://bit.ly/19xT1r4
(This last one offers nice links for the non-‐technical).
13 |
About Social Policy Research Associates (SPR)
For over two decades, SPR has provided rigorous research and evaluation and unparalleled technical assistance and training services to programs and agencies supported by: the US Departments of Labor, Education, and Housing and Urban Development; foundations and nonprofit organizations serving young people and those with barriers to employment; and policy organizations and boards providing community leadership in the areas of education and employment.
Find us:
spra.com 1333 Broadway, Suite 310 Oakland, CA 94612 510.763.1499
Questions?
Vinz Koller, Director of Technical Assistance & Training [email protected]
Kristin Wolff, Senior Associate [email protected]
We help frame, launch, support, and evaluate programs that improve lives, increase prosperity, and enhance communities for government, business, and philanthropy sector clients.