Scrum in reality

Scrum in Reality Angela Johnson, PMP, PMI-ACP, CST

Certified Scrum Trainer & Agile Transformation Coach

http://collaborativeleadershipteam.com

@CoLeadTeam

http://collaborativeleadershipteam.com/

Angela Johnson PMP, PMI-ACP, CST

• 19+ years Information Technology with traditional SDLC and Scrum/Agile

• Scrum Alliance Volunteer Provisional Trainer Approval Committee and Core Scrum Team

• Volunteer Facilitator PMI-MN Agile Practitioner Community

• Based in Minneapolis, MN

2 Copyright 2014 Collaborative Leadership Team

Yes, but in the …


Or my favorite…

“We tried Agile and it didn’t work”

“We tried Scrum and it didn’t work”

“We tried baseball and it didn’t work”


The New New Product Development Game

• January 1986 Harvard Business Review

• Hirotaka Takeuchi & Ikujiro Nonaka

• How Toyota was getting to market faster and more

flexibly without sacrificing quality

• Teams working in the “Rugby Approach”

• Process is born out of the teams interplay

• The inspiration for Jeff Sutherland naming his

framework “Scrum”


What is Scrum?

• Scrum is an innovative approach to doing work

• Scrum is an agile framework for completing

complex projects

• Scrum is about people

• Scrum is NOT a software development

methodology

• Scrum is NOT magic or a silver bullet

• Scrum will not fix your problems – it exposes them


Expanded Scrum Framework


An Empirical Process: 3 Pillars of Scrum

Inspect Adapt Transparency


The Way the World Works is Broken

“I looked at how people actually work, rather than how they say they

work”

•3 year FBI failed Virtual Case File project $170 million in tax payer dollars

•The 2005 project to fix it was estimated at $451 million to be delivered by the end of 2009

•As of March 2010, $405 million in tax payer dollars spent, half the work complete and the deadline missed

•The vendor requested another $350 million to finish it

•The FBI called Jeff Sutherland


Scrum is Different


The Rules of the Game…

“Scrum is like chess. You either

play it as the rules state, or you

don’t. Scrum and chess do not

fail or succeed. They are either

played, or not.”

Ken Schwaber


Change is Hard


Patrick Lencioni


Mirror, Mirror…

• Scrum is a mirror that will

reflect your organization

• Due to the transparent nature

of Scrum it will expose the

challenges you as an

organization already have

• If you don’t like what you see

when you look in that mirror,

who do you blame?


Shared Vision or Current Reality?

Adapted from The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge

Why are we

adopting Scrum?

Are we inspecting & adapting

daily?

Are we resisting change?

Are we delivering

business value faster?


Time to Look into the Mirror

• Self-organize into pairs

• It is not necessary to pair with someone you work with or know – you may want to pair with someone that you do not know

• It’s not necessary to share your company name or industry if you do not want to

• Use the timebox so that each of you gets the opportunity to share one or two items that you feel is the root cause of why Scrum or Agile is not working for your team, department or organization


Time Box: 5 Min.

Shared Vision or Current Reality?

Adapted from The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge


Next Steps

• Who is your customer? Why do they have the

need? What is their need? What is their Definition

of Done?

• How can you get face to face? Web cam? Google

Hang-out, Skype, GotoMeeting, WebEx, Lync, etc.?

• Are you putting tools and process before people?

• Ask why, challenge the status quo – not authority –

but how work is being done…are you working

smarter? Or harder?


Next Steps

• Have courageous conversations

• When someone says “can’t” do they really mean

they won’t or that they don’t know how?

• What are we avoiding or NOT admitting, talking

about, doing, etc.?

• Are we eliminating waste in how we do work?

• Are we collaborating, working in a “rugby-like”

approach or in silos?

• Is there trust and support of the teams?


Time to Look into the Mirror

• Back to your pairs

• Remember the root cause of why Scrum or Agile

is not working in your team, department or

organization that you identified earlier?

• Given any constraints, politics, guardrails, etc.

that exist in your current reality, what is one thing

you are willing to do in order to affect positive

change?


Time Box: 5 Min.

Wrapping Up

THANK YOU!

Please stay in touch!

Angela Johnson, PMP, PMI-ACP, CST

[email protected]


Copyright 2014 Collaborative Leadership Team 21

mailto:[email protected]



Want to Learn More?

• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

• Politics, Silos & Turf Wars by Patrick Lencioni

• The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management by Stephen Denning

• Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland

• http://xprogramming.com/articles/jatbaseball/

• http://kenschwaber.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/scrum-fails/

Copyright 2014 Collaborative Leadership Team 22

http://xprogramming.com/articles/jatbaseball/

http://xprogramming.com/articles/jatbaseball/

http://kenschwaber.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/scrum-fails/





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Scrum in reality