Tag Archives: Business

What is Scrum good for?

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I have worked with a lot of people, teams and organizations over the last 8 years helping them to adopt Scrum and I have seen some interesting patterns about where Scrum works well and where it doesn’t work so well. I wanted to share my observations to see if they correlate with what other people are experiencing.

So first off, I want to describe what I mean by Scrum working well:

  1. Teams using Scrum are obviously high-performance teams whose business results are at least 4x that of normal teams.
  2. The organization in which Scrum is being used experiences a change in culture to become more team oriented, more value oriented, and more customer oriented.

So now I can describe where I have observed Scrum to work really well:

  1. When an organization (or team) is in deep trouble and willing to admit it adopting Scrum seems to be a catalyst for creating a new culture, process and team environment where getting out of trouble is possible. This is Scrum for Crisis. The “willing to admit it” part is extremely important as I have worked with two organizations where the “deep trouble” part was obvious to me as an external person, but in both cases management and staff did not seem willing to admit the depth of their crisis and in both cases Scrum failed to act as a catalyst to get them out of trouble. In this use of Scrum, sometimes resolving the crisis then leads back to complacency and Scrum fades away.
  2. Small growing organizations that have no existing formal processes for development can use Scrum as an effective way to maintain their high-performance without getting burdened in bureaucracy. In this case, it is important to note that they are _already_ in a high performance state and their struggle is to maintain that while at the same time growing. I’ve worked with quite a number of small organizations where all they need is the CSM (plus maybe one or two days of coaching) to adopt and maintain Scrum. I have also worked with small organizations that were _not_ already high performance and Scrum has not typically worked to bump them up to a high-performance state.
  3. Pure new product development where a single strong Product Owner can be identified who has the authority to make product decisions independently of anyone else (including product budget decisions). By “pure new product development” I mean that neither the individual team members nor the team as a whole have any responsibilities outside of the product work – there is no “fractional allocation” or “resource levelling” across projects or products. The strong Product Owner is critical to success with Scrum and must understand the principles of Scrum as well as the mechanics of being a Product Owner.

I have also seen Scrum be inappropriate and not lead to the results I mentioned above:

  1. Management teams. It seems like Scrum could or should work for management teams, but it appears that managers have too much of the following problems to be able to use Scrum:
    - operational responsibilities (non-creative, non-problem-solving work)
    - urgent, legitimate interruptions (e.g. an escalated customer issue)
    - real commitments to events or projects that are calendar based (e.g. a management off-site)
    - ego: they don’t want to follow an apparently rigid process or they are always happy to make exceptions for themselves
    Again, one might imagine that Scrum _should_ work to help resolve these issues, but unfortunately I have never seen it able to do so in this context.
  2. Small teams/projects. Scrum is too heavy for teams less than 5 people or for projects shorter than 2 months in total duration. Those numbers aren’t meant to be hard and fast, but when I’ve seen small teams/projects attempt to do Scrum they _always_ end up breaking lots of the rules partly because they can and partly because they must. That said, some folks have created “Personal Scrum” and other variants. I’m not sure if we as the Scrum Alliance officially recognize/endorse those variants.
  3. Purely operational work. There just isn’t enough creativity/problem-solving to make the Sprint an appropriate process element, nor the Product Backlog an appropriate organizing mechanism. I have seen some operational environments get some benefit from doing regular retrospectives, but just doing retrospectives is not Scrum in my book. My experience with Kanban is still a little limited, but it seems to be an appropriate approach for these environments.
  4. Organizations where there is very little need to change. I’ve spent some time working with big profitable banks to adopt agile and without exception, they just can’t wrap their minds around the need for Scrum… because they are already so successful as a business. The general attitude is that Scrum is popular therefore we will call what we are doing “Scrum”, but it really isn’t. It’s Scrummerfall and Scrum-Butt wrapped up in the terminology of Scrum. They will adopt some Agile practices and get very modest benefits. I have seen minor improvements in team morale and minor improvements in quality and productivity, but certainly not anything near to what is possible for improvements. When we do assessments in this type of environment, we see Value Stream maps with waste at the 80-90% level so there is huge room for improvement… but it just doesn’t happen.

Scrum can definitely transform the world of product development. It can definitely act as a catalyst to get teams and organizations out of crisis. But that isn’t the whole world of work. I’m also concerned about the idea of using Scrum for general project management. There might be some good practices that are part of Scrum that would also be valuable in general project management (e.g. regular retrospectives, daily team meetings) but that doesn’t make Scrum a general project management framework.

I don’t claim that any of the above observations are “correct”. That’s partly why I am sharing – I would love to have a good discussion here about this because I think it is critical for us as Agilists to be able to answer this question well when we are asked: “what is Scrum good for?” – particularly since Scrum is by far the most popular Agile method.

I would love to hear other people’s observations about where Scrum works well (as I have defined “well” above) vs. where it either is only a modest improvement to existing approaches or where it might even not work at all.

Comparison of OpenAgile with Scrum

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OpenAgile is similar to Scrum in many respects. Both are systems for delivering value to stakeholders. Both are agile methods. Both are frameworks that deliberately avoid giving all the answers. So why would we choose OpenAgile over Scrum?

The most important difference is in applicability: Scrum is designed to help organizations optimize new software product development, whereas OpenAgile is designed to help anyone learn to deliver value effectively.

OpenAgile is an improvement over Scrum in the following ways:

  1. More effective teamwork and team practices, in particular the Consultative Method of Decision Making, and
    applicability over a larger range of team sizes from a single individual on up.

  2. Recognition of the individual capacities required for effective learning, namely Truthfulness, Detachment,
    Search, Love and Courage. Scrum acknowledges a separate set of qualities, but does not show how they systematically connect with the requirements of a Scrum environment.

  3. Systematic handling of more types of work beyond just “new artifacts” and “obstacles”. In particular, OpenAgile includes calendar items, repetitive items and quality items and acknowledges their unique qualities in a work
    environment. OpenAgile also provides a framework to include additional types of work beyond these five.

  4. Improved role definitions based on extensive experience.

    1. There is only one role defined in OpenAgile (Team Member) vs. three defined in Scrum (Team Member, ScrumMaster, Product Owner).

    2. There are multiple paths of service that allow Team Members and Stakeholders to engage with an OpenAgile team or community in different ways. There are five paths of service: Process Facilitation, Growth Facilitation, Tutoring, Mentoring, and Catalyst.

    3. The Process Facilitator path of service is similar to the ScrumMaster role with the following major differences:

      • is not responsible for team development
      • is not necessarily a single person, nor is it a required role

    4. The Growth Facilitator path of service is similar to the Product Owner role with the following major differences:

      • is responsible for all aspects of growth including value (like the Product Owner), and individual and team capacity building.
      • is not necessarily a single person, nor is it a required role

  5. Integration of principles and practices from other methods. Two examples suffice:

    1. From Crystal: creating a safe work/learning environment.

    2. From Lean: build quality in, value stream mapping, root cause analysis, standard work.

  6. OpenAgile allows interruptions during the Cycle. Scrum has the concept of Sprint Safety. This makes Scrum
    unsuitable for operational work and general management.

  7. The distinction between Commitment Velocity and other uses of the term “velocity” used in Scrum. Commitment Velocity is the historical minimum slope of a team’s Cycle burndown charts and determines how much work a team plans in its Engagement Meeting.

  8. Flexibility in the length a Cycle. Scrum requires that Sprints (Cycles) be one month in duration or less.
    OpenAgile allows a Cycle to be longer than that and instead provides a guideline that there should be a minimum number of Cycles planned in the time expected to reach the overall goal.

  9. The Progress Meeting in OpenAgile does not require people to take turns or directly answer specific questions.

  10. Avoiding conflict-oriented models of staff and management (Chickens and Pigs in Scrum).

  11. Terminology changes to be more clear in meaning and applicable beyond software. A comparative glossary is
    included below.

Another major difference between OpenAgile and Scrum is how the community operates. OpenAgile is an open-source
method that has a specific structure for community involvement that allows for continuous improvement of the system. Scrum is closed. It is closely managed by it’s founders and this has led to challenges with the method becoming dogmatic. OpenAgile is meant to constantly evolve and grow.

Comparative Glossary between OpenAgile and Scrum

OpenAgile Scrum
Cycle Sprint
Cycle Planning Sprint Planning and Sprint Review
Team Member Team Member or “Pigs”
Process Facilitator ScrumMaster
Growth Facilitator Product Owner
Work Queue Product Backlog
Work Queue Item Product Backlog Item
Cycle Plan Sprint Backlog
Task Task
Work Period Day
Progress Meeting Daily Scrum
Learning Circle w/ steps “Inspect and Adapt”
Delivered Value Potentially Shippable Software
Stakeholders “Chickens”
Five Types of Work:

New, Repetitive, Obstacles, Calendar,
Quality

 - no equivalents -

User Stories, N/A, Impediments, N/A, N/A
Consultative Decision Making - no equivalents -
Sector / Community - no equivalents -

References on OpenAgile:

http://www.openagile.com/

http://wiki.openagile.org/

References on Scrum:

http://www.scrumalliance.org/

http://www.scrum.org/

“Agile Software Development with Scrum” - Schwaber and Beedle

“Agile Project Management with Scrum” - Schwaber

“Scrum and the Enterprise” – Schwaber

Professionalism and Agility

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Recently, I have been reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Fascinating reading. In this book, Mr. Gladwell chronicles some of the backgrounds of top professionals in artistic, sport and business endeavors. He tried to determine why these individuals/groups have accomplished so much in their lives and why they are in the top of their profession. Tiger Woods, Bill Gates and the Beatles are a few of the many professionals he examines. There should be no doubt in your mind that Tiger Woods is the top golfer, Bill Gates is a very successful entrepreneur, and the Beatles are a prolific band.

Please forgive me Mr. Galdwell if I summarize and distill your findings into a few short sentences. The answer is 10,000 hours. Each of these individuals or groups put 10,000 hours into their chosen profession before they arrived at the top. They viewed their professions differently, were passionate about what they did and behaved differently when learning their profession. I am not suggesting you need to work for 10,000 hours before you are successful. I am suggesting if you adopt the same methods they do, you will increase your chance of success.

As I observed these top professionals, I began to see similarities in a number of areas. They seem to share a comfort in their ability to grow and develop. I am not sure they set out to be the top but they certainly thought they would overcome what life threw at them and they trusted their own capacity to excel. I have found that giving yourself a steady message of what is possible helps you deal better with life and to overcome all the negatives around us. As an example, I seldom read the newspaper or watch the news, for this barrage of negative messages affects my outlook of what is possible. It seems to me that these top professionals insulate themselves from negative messages as well.

Next, they have incredible self discipline skills. They practice their profession with passion. They don’t believe in luck as much as they believe in hard work. This is where the 10,000 hours come into their development. They are constantly practicing to improve and master their profession. The top professionals did not achieve their position through luck, they attained the position through hard work.

To summarize, their methods are to be positive about your ability to cope with the future, give yourself positive messages, be disciplined about mastering your profession and be prepared to work hard to achieve the position of the professional.

There is a quote I like that was told to me by a businessperson from Jamaica. When asked his view of life, he said “I refuse to be held hostage by circumstances!” The top professionals choose their future and are agile as they cope with what life offers.

It seems to me another reason why these individuals are so successful is that they were very agile in their approach to life. They created their future rather than follow others. Through their own personal agility they made the right decisions to gain a top position in their chosen profession.

So the question I have been wrestling with is this: If they can be the top, then why not me? What is holding me back? Well, if you have ever spent time with me, or read any of my books, you would know the answer. The only thing holding me back is me. Can I get better? Yes, I can. Can I work harder? Yes, I can. Can I be more successful? Yes, I can. Can I be more agile in my approach to life and its challenges? Absolutely yes!

So how about you? In these troubled economic times, we have an opportunity to re-invent ourselves. The best way to survive and thrive from our current situation is to build the future we desire. Rather than expending a lot of energy worrying about your current situation, you should be taking that energy and using it to take charge of your future and build a new reality. Approach whatever life throws at you with agility. I believe success is a choice. Make good choices and everything is possible.

Using Agile to Run a Small Business – Five Types of Work

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At Berteig Consulting, we used Scrum to run our business for quite a while – about one year.  Over that time we struggled with a few different concepts and practices.  As a Certified Scrum Trainer, I am very aware that Scrum requires us to use the framework itself to expose obstacles, rather than modifying Scrum to accommodate obstacles.  However, over the course of that year, it became more and more obvious that there is something fundamentally different between writing software products (where Scrum is fantastic) and running a business.  Scrum, the framework, just wasn’t good enough.

The main problem we had was with the types of work we encounter in running a business.  We noticed patterns in the types of tasks we had every Cycle (Sprint).  In this article I will look carefully at two of those types of work and then briefly describe the other three types of work.

We discovered that calendar items such as meetings, scheduled public events, and even personal appointments didn’t fit anywhere in Scrum’s Product Backlog or Sprint Backlog.  At first, we tried to think of this as an obstacle and force-fit these into the Product Backlog.  That didn’t work because that meant we couldn’t always prioritize by value.  Even if the Product Backlog had something more valuable in it than the scheduled meeting, we sometimes couldn’t change the dates of the meeting to accomodate the more valuable work.  So Calendar Items became a new category of work in addition to the new “features” that were in the Product Backlog.  (I say “features” in quotes because we were running a business not writing software.)

We also noticed that we were struggling with applying the concept of the Definition of Done.  This led us to explore the concept of Repetitive Work.  For example, we need to clean our office on a regular basis – vacuum, water plants, take out trash, etc.  If we left that until it became more valuable than anything else on our Product Backlog we would have ended up with a disgusting work environment.  So we thought that this should be part of our Definition of Done.  The problem then became a more conceptual one: what were we doing that needed cleaning so that it would be considered done?  Well of course, it’s simply part of business operations.  Cleaning is not independently valuable.  We did decide that it was most cost-effective to outsource it, but it didn’t match the concept of Definition of Done as applied to the work in the Product Backlog.  That led to an insight: actually, we were looking at a new category of work: Repetitive Items.  These are those activities that we need to do to sustain our business and which should become habits, or which should be automated or outsourced.

After identifying Calendar Items and Repetitive Items as types of work, we decided that we needed to look at the Product Backlog more carefully.  We decided that we needed to separate features, or as we called it “New Work”, from defects or Quality Items.  We also formalized the concept of a queue of Obstacles, which is mentioned in Scrum, but about which is given very little guidance.

So after over a three years of trying to use agile methods to run our business, we have finally come up with a stable and seemingly sufficient set of types of work:

  • Calendar Items
  • Repetitive Items
  • Quality Items
  • Obstacles
  • New Work

We have written more about our experiences and their results in our e-book: The OpenAgile Primer.  If you are trying to use agile methods to run a business or any other kind of organization, please check it out and let us know about your experiences.  We hope that OpenAgile will become an Open-Source method that we can contribute back to the world of work and life.

Agile Productivity Measures

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Scott Ambler has written a couple good articles about measuring productivity with velocity.  Acceleration: An Agile Productivity Measure. and Examining Acceleration.

From what I understand, this is a measure of the effect of agile on the relative improvement over time of a team.  I would beg to differ that it is a measure of productivity.  Productivity is value delivered over time.  If team A is delivering $5/week and team B is delivering $5000/week, then knowing that team A is accelerating faster than team B isn’t terribly important, particularly if the market can’t bear to absorb $6/week of whatever team A is producing.

Measuring productivity is hard.  I would love to hear from people who have tried various means to measure productivity.  I measure productivity in our business, but I can do that because we are small and everything we do has a direct effect on the bottom line.  Does your business run with that transparency?  If not, why not?

OpenAgile and Small Business Management

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For the past three months I have been working with Paul Heidema (our VP of Marketing) to use OpenAgile to run our business.  I thought it might be interesting for folks to see a screen capture of how we have arranged things in CardMeeting to do our planning and tracking. The yellow cards are labels for our Cycles, the white cards are Work Queue items, and the blue cards are Tasks related to the item.  The orange cards represent special information (eg. obstacles or ongoing work) and the green cards represent reflections and learning for each Cycle.

BCI OpenAgile CardMeeting

Agile Benefits: Satisfied Stakeholders

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So far, we’ve discussed learning and value as benefits of agile. Now we turn to a more human side: satisfied stakeholders. Agile methods provide multiple roads to satisfaction for customers, users, business people, bureaucrats (okay, maybe not _all_ bureaucrats), team members, managers, shareholders, and interested passer-by. There are three primary mechanisms by which this occurs: engagement, trust-building and feedback-control. [UPDATED: added link to explanation of Commitment Velocity]

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Agile Benefits: Early Return on Investment

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We wouldn’t do agile if we didn’t think it was better in some way. More and more, I am seeing the adoption of agile methods being driven by business management (rather then engineering). There is a clear reason for this: agile methods offer the possibility of early return on investment compared to other methods of working. This benefit is only one of five essential benefits of agile, but it is one of the most practical and easiest to measure. Therefore it is important to clearly understand how agile methods can deliver this benefit… and how they can fail to do so!

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Agile Benefits: Rapid Learning

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So what exactly are the benefits of agile? Why are people, teams and organizations so interested in agile processes? What about agile caused it to become a popular and rapidly growing approach to working? I have seen five essential benefits that come from implementing an agile methodology. Here I describe what I think of as the most important benefit of agile: rapid learning.

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Strategic Plan

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Okay, this is only marginally related to agile, but I thought it was interesting nevertheless: How to Write a Detailed Strategic Plan. The main connection to Agile Work, is that you need to have a clear performance goal in mind towards which you are working. This may be a great way to clarify your thoughts about such a goal.