Part 5: Artifacts and Transparency

"Hi, Kishore; thank you for giving me time on such short notice," Mike greeted Kishore in his office, "let me introduce you to one of our excellent engineers, Barbara; like me, she is also moving to the Product Owner role in a few months, she is also looking for mentoring sessions from you before transitioning."

"Hi Barbara, nice to meet you; I think we've met a few times before, most recently during a training," Kishore said to her, and they shook hands.

"Yes, but I guess now we will meet more often," Barbara smiled.

"Do you have anything specific to discuss today," Kishore asked

"Not exactly, it is mainly an introduction," Barbara said, and after a second of silence, she added, "Since we are already here, if you want to focus on only one thing, what would it be?"

"Providing value to the stakeholders that truly matters to them," Kishore replied without hesitation.

"Oh yes, that is a must; I meant to say other than that," she added.

"That is an interesting question," Mike participated.

"Yhea, no one asked me this before," Kishore thought deeply. After a few seconds, he replied, "Try to achieve transparency."

Mike and Barbara were not expecting this answer, "We already have Scrum boards for this," Barbara puzzled.

"There is no such thing as a Scrum Board," this time Kishore was smiling. "Ok, before going into that route, let me tell you one interesting thing: Transparency is not only crucial in empiricism, which is the basis of Scrum[1], but also one of the core values of SAFe[2], Kanban[4], and a principle of LeSS[3]."

Mike and Barbara were still quiet, trying to absorb this information. Kishore continued, "If I remember the name correctly, Stephanie Ockerman and Simon Reindl wrote in their book that transparency is an antidote to unrealistic expectations [5]."

"But why did you say there is no such thing as Scrum Board? Doesn't it give us transparency," Barbara asked.

"You seem to have a huge interest in astronomy," Kishore said while looking around the office, where many posters of planets and the solar system were displayed.

"Oh yes, I have loved it since childhood," Mike replied passionately.

"Ok, let's talk about it; I might not have up-to-date knowledge; please correct me if I make any mistakes," Kishore said. "For thousands of years, the stars have been visible to humans, and they even created a zodiac sign and constellation based on them, but they assumed Earth was the center of the universe."

"Yes, it is called Geocentric belief," Mike responded.

"But some of the objects' motions couldn't be explained by that model, so although it is visible, it is not transparent because, per the dictionary, transparency means readily understood [6]," Kishore said.

"Yes, it is called retrograde motion," Mike added.

"Interesting example. So what I got from here is visibility and transparency are not the same thing," Barbara picked up quickly.

"The story is not even ending here," Kishore seems to enjoy the conversation, also searching for something on his laptop, "Let me add more to the party; John Maeda said transparency is about accessing the information, and clarity is about understanding the fact [7], Margaret Ruvoldt further explained this, transparency is about providing visibility, knowledge, and information, clarity is to provide context, understanding, and precision [8]."

"Can you give an example of it," Barbara asked.

"Let me think," Kishore said and, after a second, started with a smile, "Ok, let's continue the astronomy theme; recently, we have been able to discover more Galaxies, local groups, and super clusters with this information we know more clarity about our place in the universe, and if I am not mistaken it was due to the observation of Edwin Hubble."

"Yes, you are right," Mike also seems to enjoy the conversation on his favorite subject theme.

"Let's invite certainty too," Kishore continues while smiling, "Karen Martin discusses the difference between clarity and certainty; one may achieve clarity, but certainty is not always possible; it is also possible to be clear, but not be transparent about certain information due to legal constraints [9]."

"But how is it even possible that one is clear but not transparent," Babara is puzzled.

"Initially, I was also confused, but Karen also gave an example, such as the doctor giving clear instructions to the patient's relative, but not transparent about providing information due to the law [9]."

Mike and Barbara thought for a moment and nodded. Kishore continued, "Mike, can you give one example of certainty from astronomy?"

Mike thought momentarily, then replied, "In April 2020, NASA Space probe New Horizon took pictures of Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359 to measure their distance using the Parallax observation method to give us more certainty about their distances."

"Impressive," Kishore said.

After a few minutes of silence, Kishore again asked an unexpected question: "Why does Scrum have only three artifacts? Why not two or four or five?"

Mike and Barbara were quiet for a moment, and then Barbara stated, "Since our discussion started with transparency, I guess it has something to do with it."

Kishore smiled and said, "Keep going; you are on the right track. That is what the purpose of Scrum artifacts is: to provide transparency of key information [1]."

"I assume there are three types of transparencies," Mike added.

"Focus is not exactly the types of transparencies, but the duration, to define the transparency of past, present, and future work," Kishore replied.

Mike and Barbara thought for a moment but couldn't get it and kept looking towards Kishore.

"The Product Backlog is a single source of truth for everything that may be included in the product. Product Backlog makes future work transparent. The Sprint Backlog is a set of Product Backlog items for the current Sprint and a plan to create an Increment. Sprint Backlog makes the current work transparent. The Definition of Done, which is the commitment for the Increment, provides transparency for what is included in the Increment. The Increment itself provides transparency of past work. In short, it covers the transparency of past, present, and future work," Kishore said.

Mike and Barbara were surprised and then amazed with this aha moment.

References

1. Scrum Guide 2020 https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html

2. Core Values https://www.scaledagileframework.com/safe-core-values/

3. Transparency https://less.works/less/principles/transparency

4. Kanban from the Inside by Mike Burrows

5. Mastering Professional Scrum by Stephanie Ockerman and Simon Reindl

6. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transparent

7. Leaders Should Strive for Clarity, Not Transparency by John Maeda https://hbr.org/2009/07/leaders-should-strive-for-clar

8. Is Your Goal Transparency or Clarity? Because they are Not the Same by Margaret Ruvoldt https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/your-goal-transparency-clarity-because-same-margaret-ruvoldt/

9. Clarity First: How Smart Leaders and Organizations Achieve Outstanding Performance by Karen Martin