End of Scrum? Part II: Lean Thinking

?? Update 28th October 2022

This newsletter is not active anymore. If you want to receive free PM tips, resources, and advice biweekly, subscribe here: https://huryn.substack.com/

Of course, I'll still be using my personal LinkedIn account ( Pawe? Huryn ).

- - - - -

This story is Part II of the "End of Scrum" series.?I'm trying to look to the future and answer the question: "Is it really game over for Scrum as some say, or maybe the game hasn't even started yet?".?Before continuing this one, I encourage you to read?Part I: Empiricism.

Part II: Lean Thinking

“Scrum is founded on empiricism and lean thinking (…) Lean thinking reduces waste and focuses on the essentials” — Scrum Guide 2020

This single reference to lean thinking is underrated, in my opinion. Lean is a management philosophy inspired by Toyota system practices. Performance is characterized by a process structure that tries to minimize risk and waste while maximizing customer value. Although Scrum does not implement Lean in its entirety, it addresses many of its core elements:

• Lean shifts focus from the performance of the people (or machines) doing the work to the value and the value stream.
• Lean flow principles include reduction of lead time, eliminating bottlenecks, and eliminating all areas of waste.
• Lean emphasizes the quality of what is being produced and seeks perfection through?Continuous Improvement.
• Lean leadership is about commitment to employees, systems, and making improvements. A lean environment requires leaders to improve both verbal and listening skills to understand the teams' problems.

Scrum accountabilities, Scrum Events, and Scrum Artifacts implement lean thinking, e.g.:

• The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value stream. It is one person, not a committee, which promotes quick decision-making.
• Having cross-functional teams allows for a quick flow of work and information.
• Reducing waste examples: in Scrum practice,?only top-level Product Backlog Items are more precisely refined?("The Product Backlog is refined as needed"), Scrum Events are used to?"create regularity and to minimize the need for meetings not defined in Scrum."
• Daily Scrum Event — In their 2008 book?The Toyota Product Development System, Jim Morgan and Jeffrey Liker talk about quick and frequent meetings, which in this context are used to determine whether the project is going as planned.
• Sprint Retrospective Event — In Lean, the term used for this type of activity is?nemawashi, which means "reflection."
• Definition of Done to have a shared understanding of what it means for work to be completed, increase transparency, enable more accurate forecasts, and ensure quality.
• Scrum Masters are?"true leaders who serve the Scrum Team and the larger organization"?—this is a lean,?servant leadership?concept (the term "true leader"?is used in Scrum Guide 2020).

Scrum can be easily supplemented by additional techniques like?Kanban with Scrum, which can supplement Scrum with flow optimization techniques, like?limiting "Work In Progress."

Lean criticism

Lean has revolutionized modern production, the best example of which is Toyota's success. But there is also some criticism. Let's see how Scrum addresses it:

1. No margins for errors — Just-in-time, pull manufacturing systems operated with a lean workforce allow no margin for error, no buffer for mistakes. A missing part, broken machine tool, or work stoppage could immediately halt production throughout the plant. I would argue that this is not a problem with Scrum. It is built on empiricism which asserts that knowledge comes from experience. Scrum is designed so that we learn by trying, making errors, experimenting, and adapting based on feedback.

“Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from experience and making decisions based on what is observed (…)

In complex environments, what will happen is unknown. Only what has already happened may be used for forward-looking decision making.” — Scrum Guide 2020

2. Employees' stress — Many say that Lean may involve risks, especially regarding employees' psychological well-being. However, some studies show that specific Lean components were harmful while others were beneficial to the employees. Scrum eliminates one of the key reasons that cause stress, which is “no margins for error" mentioned in the previous point. It also recognizes that people can only be truly productive if we provide them with psychological safety.

“The Scrum Team commits to achieving its goals and to supporting each other (…)

Scrum Team members respect each other to be capable, independent people, and are respected as such by the people with whom they work (…)

Scrum Master server the Scrum Team (…) Ensuring that all Scrum events take place and are positive, productive, and kept within the timebox.” — Scrum Guide 2020

3. Over-focus on waste and costs?—Scrum focuses on maximizing value. Eliminating waste is mainly a way to deliver value faster.

“Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems.” — Scrum Guide 2020

4. Lack of standard methodology —Scrum is just a framework that defines only the necessary elements. Each new version of the Scrum Guide becomes even less prescriptive.

“The Scrum framework is purposefully incomplete, only defining the parts required to implement Scrum theory. Scrum is built upon by the collective intelligence of the people using it. Rather than provide people with detailed instructions, the rules of Scrum guide their relationships and interactions.” — Scrum Guide 2020

5. Changing the organizational culture — The most severe "criticism" of the Lean that applies to the Scrum Framework is that changing culture is not easy.

It's not that the principles are wrong. Just like it's easy to define how to take care of the body mass index (BMI), it doesn't mean you'll succeed in trying to do it.

As a result, when a problem arises, people try to work around it rather than deal with its root. Management is another big culprit. They apply lean principles to their team but not their leadership processes. It is not a story about neither Lean nor Agile transformations. I will address it another time. Now it's worth remembering that:

“Successful use of Scrum depends on people becoming more proficient in living five values: Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage” — Scrum Guide 2020

Source: https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/5-scrum-values-take-center-stage

Scrum does not fix organizational culture problems, but it makes them visible:

“Scrum makes visible the relative efficacy of current management, environment, and work techniques, so that improvements can be made.” — Scrum Guide 2020

For example, during the Sprint Retrospective event, the Scrum Team reflects on individuals and interactions:

“The Scrum Team inspects how the last Sprint went with regards to individuals, interactions, processes, tools, and their Definition of Done.” — Scrum Guide 2020

The Sprint Review event is also a great opportunity to openly discuss issues external to the Scrum Team that make it difficult for the Scrum Team to move closer to the Product Goal (yes, it is not limited to discussing an Increment):

“The purpose of the Sprint Review is to inspect the outcome of the Sprint and determine future adaptations. The Scrum Team presents the results of their work to key stakeholders and progress toward the Product Goal is discussed.“ — Scrum Guide 2020

In addition, we have a Scrum Master helping everyone understand Scrum theory and practice, both within the Scrum Team and the organization:

“The Scrum Master is accountable for establishing Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. They do this by helping everyone understand Scrum theory and practice, both within the Scrum Team and the organization” — Scrum Guide 2020

Despite all the above elements, changing a culture is a considerable challenge. Problems may become visible, but no one in the organization may care about them. It's fair to say that this happens quite often.

In my opinion, this is not a direct flaw of Scrum but rather a prerequisite for any Agile framework to be effective.?It must be proactively addressed as part of any Agile transformation.

What's next?

In the first part, I explained why I think that empiricism as a way of dealing with complexity is simply immortal. In this story, I discussed lean thinking and how the Scrum Guide addresses Leans’ most common criticism.

I will continue this series and present how empiricism and lean thinking have been combined, supplemented with additional techniques and ideas (like "timeboxing"), and parameterized. Finally, we should see if Scrum can ever be replaced, end, or evolve, and if so, to what extent.