This video is about WHAT IS NOT SCRUM?
I start my trainings with a Question,
Are you a part of Agile team & if yes then how much do you know about Agile and what is that about it you do at work?
In today’s IT Software companies, agile is a NEW COOL and almost all of them wear the hats of Agile companies or agile teams
Most of them confidently answer that they are part of agile team, they know it well and also practicing it at work.
Then just to understand them better
I ask them what makes them agile?
Then the answers that I often get are:
We do sprints
We do daily standup meetings
We write user stories
We give sprint demo and do sprint retrospective meetings
Also, we have scrum master and product owner roles in our team
Well these are the names of meetings, roles or vocabulary that are used in a well known agile approach called Scrum..
Then I ask my next question: How does it make you agile?
I observe silence for a while and then somebody answers it:
Well that’s what we have seen other teams doing it
Or somebody knew it from their previous experience and they share how they have perceived it
And many blame their so called Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches
Who are certified and expected to know Agile in and out
And somewhere they need to fulfil their roles
They end up creating weird environment in which everybody focuses on practices
But rarely anyone understands the essence behind it
Then I simply ask them – WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY AGILE?
They answer – quick, faster, nimble, change, software methodology and quite a few
Hmmm.
I understand that;
Agile is a mindset and culture that helps us in responding to change as we need to continuously adapt to changes to move faster and quicker.
Actually, we are all scared of getting out of market. Also, it is changing so rapidly. Didn’t we all moved to smart phones, socializing on facebook, adding our intellectual bit on Linkedin and somehow Whatsapp has filled all the other gaps. Atleast for me.. Things are changing and consciously and sub-consciously we all are adapting to change.
And if you resist, this world may quote you as anti-social, outdated or great enough to keep yourself away from worldly pleasures
Then WHAT IS SCRUM?
May be in West people could quickly answer Rugby but in other parts we do not follow it although in India we follow cricket more. Scrum is a formation in Rugby where people huddle around.
The makers of Scrum chose this word and we all Agilists try to explain the world what is this game RUGBY all about?
Very few knows about it but it is a beautiful approach that has really helped many of us in bringing some change in the mindset that is strongly convinced with traditional approach of delivering software in phases like a relay race.
It helps us in getting faster feedback and continuously evolution of desired goal
To do SCRUM, you need to have Scrum team in place
What a great team it would be if it has just 3 roles:
One person who knows about WHAT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO and WHY? – this person is called Product Owner. For ease we call it as PO role
Group of people WHO KNOWS HOW TO DO THE THING RIGHT? As they have all the necessary skills needed to achieve the goal of the product. They are called DEVELOPMENT TEAM MEMBERS
And a person as a facilitator who helps the team in solving their problems, removing the blockers that are stopping them and coach them to move faster and easily. This person is SCRUM MASTER. Kind of SANKAT MOCHAN in hindu mythology
The traits expected from the scrum team are:
Self Organizing, Highly Performing, Cross functional, Motivated to deliver, trust & respect each other
This all comes with giving autonomy to team and continuous support from leadership to help them succeed
All meetings also called as ceremonies are Timeboxed & disciplined
Sprint can not be more than 4 weeks
For a 4 week sprint,
Sprint planning meeting can not be more than 8 hours
Review and Retro can not be more than 4 hours each
Daily standup can never be more than 15 min whatever is the size of the sprint
Every meeting has a purpose & you haven’t figured that out then its a drama that you are doing
Sprint planning is for the team to inspect what is the working software goal and adapt to the plan they all commit to
Daily standup is not a status update meeting but it is an event where you inspect the work remained and adapt to new plan they identify to achieve the goals of the sprint
Sprint Review or Demo is an event where we inspect the work that we have done during the sprint from all the stakeholders and adapt the feedback we received
Sprint Retrospective is an event where we inspect the process or incidences that happened during our sprint journey and adapt to improvements that we identify and can surely make in upcoming sprints
Team continuously inspect and adapt to changes and that is what scrum is and if it is not happening then whatever it is I hope it works for you. 🙂