A Respectful Approach to Introducing Scrum (or some other framework).
At the Lean Agile Scrum Conference in Zurich, David Anderson explained the basic approach of Kanban:
The implication of course is that Scrum is disrespectful because Scrum comes with new roles. His comments were echoed by many participants. Given that Respect is a core value of Scrum, I was surprised at this insinuation. Why do so many people seem to find the Scrum approach disrespectful?
Here is how I prefer to introduce Scrum.
When I first read Ken Schwaber’s ‘Agile Project Management with Scrum’, there was a paragraph which really got my attention: ‘Remember your best project? How was it?’
In my case, I was working for the SIG in Neuhausen. Urban Wymann, my customer / project leader was responsible for introducing some 60 Sun Workstations into the CAD department. His goal was to install and manage those systems with a reasonable amount of effort. I had some ideas on how to do application distribution, so he gave me a week to try out my idea. After a week, I demoed what I had written; he liked it and gave me feedback about where the next step should go. We continued on that basis — one week cycles of demo, discuss, do, demo — through the entire summer. By the end of the summer, the ‘Stevens Tools’, were able to automatically install, update and configure a network of 60 workstations spread over two sites with minimal effort on the part of the system manager. This work started in 1993 and the Stevens Tools became the basis of my career for the next 10 years.
See any similarities to Scrum? I sure did. When I read that sentence in Ken’s book, I was hooked. All of sudden I understood exactly what he was talking about and I knew that Scrum was right for me.
How effective would your efforts be if you colleagues, managers and stakeholders could have a ‘Eureka!’ moment like that?
Today when I go to a customer for the first time to hold an ‘Intro to Scrum’ workshop, the first thing I do is ask them — as a group — to remember their best projects and share those stories with each other. (I’ll skip the details of how I do the moderation – it is basically Seth Kahan’s Jumpstart Storytelling). The group eventually selects the best stories (top 3 or so) and listens to them in plenum.
After everyone has heard the best examples of a good project, I show them a list of attributes of successful projects and ask them which ones they see in their stories. Although my list is a pretty good one, their list often has some interesting additions. Those (and the things they missed) are the basis for an interesting discussion on how to best move forward.
Based on their stories they tell, I can usually see if Scrum or Kanban is a good match. I have even run into cases where neither is a good match – in this case, the people need to invent something new, and that’s OK.
By going through this exercise, they focus on what’s really important to succeeding. Assuming their patterns are a good match with Scrum (and they usually are), then we can go look and see how Scrum helps them achieve the things they need to be succussful. More importantly, the story telling mode gets them into really thinking about the issues instead of reacting defensively.
So how do I explain the principles of Scrum? Easy:
Oh yes, and replacing a culture of fear with a culture of trust is one of the most important things you can do to improve the productivity and creativity in your organization.
And still, I am left with the question, Why do so many people seem to find the Scrum approach disrespectful?
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement | 1 year | Set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie is used to record the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category . |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional | 11 months | The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". |
viewed_cookie_policy | 11 months | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
mailchimp_landing_site | 1 month | The cookie is set by MailChimp to record which page the user first visited. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
CONSENT | 2 years | YouTube sets this cookie via embedded youtube-videos and registers anonymous statistical data. |
_ga | 2 years | The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors. |
_gat_gtag_UA_42152348_1 | 1 minute | Set by Google to distinguish users. |
_gcl_au | 3 months | Provided by Google Tag Manager to experiment advertisement efficiency of websites using their services. |
_gid | 1 day | Installed by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
NID | 6 months | NID cookie, set by Google, is used for advertising purposes; to limit the number of times the user sees an ad, to mute unwanted ads, and to measure the effectiveness of ads. |
test_cookie | 15 minutes | The test_cookie is set by doubleclick.net and is used to determine if the user's browser supports cookies. |
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | 5 months 27 days | A cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface. |
YSC | session | YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages. |
yt-remote-connected-devices | never | YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. |
yt-remote-device-id | never | YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
COMPASS | 1 hour | No description |
cookies.js | session | No description available. |
S | 1 hour | No description available. |
2 Comments
Lovely post. It hits home! I've not been to this site for a while…. my loss.
Dear srinivas C,
Thank you for the flowers!
Cheers,
Peter