Empiricism – has your implementation achieved it?

If you are familiar with SCRUM, you probably already know that SCRUM is an Empirical process. Correct? So what is Empiricism?

Empiricism is defined as working based on fact, experience and evidence. A lot of which comes through experience and running multiple Sprints to gain insights into various characteristics of the data collected. Progress is based on observations of reality, rather than fictitious plans. SCRUM (and many other AGILE methodologies) emphasizes a lot on the paradigm shift in the way teams work to bring in the necessary business and organizational agility.

Ok, all that is good, but how do you know if your implementation is actually following Empiricism?

Let’s get the basics - three pillars of Empiricism

1)     Transparency – Transparency in SCRUM is all about, well, Transparency! It exists everywhere – in your SPRINT planning meetings, daily stand ups, Backlog Grooming sessions, or Retrospectives. This includes the Customer, Product Owners, Team Members, even the CEO (as applicable depending upon organization size) to ensure they trust each other, have the courage to share all good or bad news. Also, everyone practices it (remember paradigm shift?) to stay aligned towards the strategic organizational goal.

2)     Inspection – Inspection is at the core of SCRUM. No SCRUM implementation in the world is complete or successful if the team doesn’t inspect what they are doing and how they are doing. To do the Inspection effectively, Transparency is required (see the correlation?). This Inspection is not done by an outsider, or by one person, but by the entire team. Various things can be inspected, including the processes, meetings, timings, requirements, or estimates.

3)     Adaptation – Adaptation brings in Continuous Improvements. The learnings from the Inspection are implemented (or adapted) into the SCRUM processes to achieve faster time to market, reduced cost of ownership, enhanced software quality, and improved customer satisfaction.  

Transparency within the organization is something that drives the entire Empiricism. If teams, customers and other stakeholders are not transparent, Inspections wont be effective thereby impairing Adaptation of learnings. It is therefore extremely important that Transparency is induced, encouraged and somehow measured for Empiricism to work.

What are common “symptoms” that the Increment or Team is not transparent?

-         No clear definition of “Done” and/or definition of “Ready”

-         Over/under commitment by teams (sometimes under business pressure to look good)

-         Lack of trust between PO and team members

-         Product Backlog not updated regularly

How can an AGILE team cause lack of transparency?

-         All team members not participating during Sprint Retrospective event

-         Burndown chart not visible/shared with PO by the team

-         Sprint Backlog items not updated regularly reducing visibility into the progress

-         Static Velocity, or team under committing constantly while delivering more trying to look “good”

SCRUM Master’s role

-         Remove impediments by encouraging open communication

-         Help PO keep the Product Backlog organized, prioritized and up to date all the time accessible to team members for early information

-         Help PO realize the importance of Technical backlog items team wants to work upon

-         Create Cumulative Flow Diagram to show where the blockage is

-         Prompt team members to provide open feedback, share impediments

Happy Sprinting!