Putting Chickens in the Picture

The Story

Perhaps you know the Chicken and Pig story?

The Chicken and the Pig are walking down the road together (friends). The Chicken says: "I think we should open a restaurant together." The Pig says: "Oink! (pause) What should we call it?" Chicken: "Let's call it Ham and Eggs! A breakfast restaurant!" Pig: "Oink!! Wait! That means I'd be committed and you'd only be involved!"

An old Scrum story. The moral: The Scrum Team is committed, and the "chickens" (people outside the Team who help) are only involved. And the chickens, usually, are not nearly as reliable as the Pigs. Well, of course, because the Team's work is not the chickens' main job.

Let me re-state. In my opinion, every Scrum team is reliant partly on a set of Chickens.

Yes, the Team must be responsible for making it happen, for building the product, and for its overall success.

But a KEY part of the success is dependent on the various things that the Chickens help us with. Often, without the Chickens, we could not attain success at all.

What is a Chicken?

You see above the 4 (and the 8) circles I have under CHX.

What does each circle represent? A kind of chicken, or an additional person or persons who could help the Team in some way. The circles can represent:

• a person
• a group of people, perhaps a department
• another Scrum Team
• a vendor outside the company
• Etc

And what can a chicken do for us? What is the role, or what can the roles be?

• a coach
• someone who does some work for us
• someone who works beside us (the Team), with us, for awhile (making working beside one person on the Team)
• someone from a skill set group, such as a DBA or an architect
• someone who does some work (eg, some code), and gives it to us
• someone who builds an encapsulated widget that we can just insert into our product

Two main points:

• a chicken can be in almost any formation
• a chicken might help us in almost any way you might imagine

Who manages the Chickens?

The Scrum Guide barely mentions the idea of chickens. The simple theory (never wholly true in real life) is the Team is autonomous, almost completely autonomous and self-reliant.

That's a good idea, and please do go as far as you can with that.

But I think usually your Team will still need some chickens.

Who manages the chickens?

I propose that each person in the Team take responsibility for tracking one chicken.

Ideally, if you are that person, you have a prior relationship with that chicken. You explain the situation and the need. You ask the chicken to help, to help figure out a way of working together that helps the overall company be successful.

It is common that a chicken does not prioritize our work (the work for us) (as highly as we would). So, it is common that the chicken delivers later than we want. Nothing nefarious. Just that our #1 thing (our current release) is NOT the #1 priority for the chicken.

We normally have two key issues:

will the chicken deliver on time

• will "it" (whatever the chicken is delivering to us) be delivered well and with high quality

So, if George (a Team member) finds that Chicken X is delivering the wrong thing, or low quality, or late, and especially if this becomes a top impediment for us, then George identifies this impediment to the Team.

And if this impediment with Chicken X starts to be the team's top impediment, then the ScrumMaster must become engaged.

Over time, we will learn many normal ways of dealing with these impediments related to chickens. And teams should share the ways that they have dealt with the issues, and resolved them somewhat successfully.

To close, let me mention one common resolution. George invites Chicken X to take to the senior manager (two levels above both of them, to whom they both ultimately report). The meeting is arranged to discuss priorities (not to throw anyone under the bus). And the senior manager gets to decide which will be more important, either Team A's priority or the priority (or priorities) of Chicken X's group.

And no hard feelings, whichever way the senior manager decides. identify a key person (in the Team or possibly outside) to try to improve the relationship with the chicken (eg, a vendor).

We and the organization must look at these not as impossible conflicts, but as expectable conflicts, and we learn, over time, to respond to them more appropriately. For example, it will not always be true that Team A's priorities will be more important. Equally, the priorities for Chicken X's group will not always be the most important. These specific situations vary widely.

Use this idea or pattern. Make it work for you.

To your improving Scrum Team! And Happy Thanksgiving!