Scrum is a challenge
I've been thinking about how many Scrum teams actually aren't Scrum teams, and why that is so. Stuff that usually happens is:
- the set of skills that the team needs (to be autonomous) is too large for a team of max 9 people to already posess (specialized skills, yes, looking at you)
- some people are needed only a day or so during a sprint, and are too valuable to be doing other "other less valuable" work
- Product Owner is too hard to find - because of unavailability, lacking domain knowledge, not enough experience in building software so unable to slice and order the stories, hard to be that bridge between the dev team and users, etc.
- Srum Master is a fictious role, there is no human being in our company that would have all those skills - impediment remover, facilitator, coach, scrum guardian that is respected enough in the team/company and can do her work despite formal authority
- we can't deliver every sprint because of, again, reasons
- we can't get our users and stakeholders together on a review because of, you know, reasons again
And on and on the list goes. So what do you do? You implement "something", call it Scrum, go home, come back the next day and act like nothing happened. Oh, and periodicly complain that Scrum is not working.
So let's get things straight. Scrum is about challenging the norm in your company. It's about stepping outside of the comfort zone. It's about embarking on a yourney of experiments out of which many will certainly start going in unexpected directions. It's about learning from them.
Making a Scrum team is all about organisational courage and perseverance.
So, to revisit our points:
- can the team somehow create a plan to educate themselves (or get educated) in order to acquire that specialized skill? How can management support that, and how can the team self-organize around that?
- If the best PO candidate has too many other reponsibilities, can we gradually transfer them to ther people so she can dedicate herself to only one product full time? If she's in upper management is she really the person for the role? If she has no experience in building software, e.g. comming up with user stories, ordering and sizing the backlog - is there a coach that can help her?
- Can the newly appointed Scrum Master really work without formal authority? Why not? What is the team valuing more - the formal authority or the truth?* Is she skilled enough to remove impediments? What needs to happen for her to become skilled snough? Facilitation and coaching skills - sometimes they're just a good course away.
- Can't deliver every sprint? Do you work with stories small enough? Why not? You don't work with stories - why not? Don't have a proper build process that would always produce stable software? Invest in it! Don't have good enough tests? Challenge yourself and find a way to write them! The tools and knowledge are out there.
- Can't get stakeholders and users for a review? - are you entrenched in the belief that you already know what the user want? How sure are you, and what makes you so sure? When was the last time you sad them down in front of your product and validated you assumptions?
You get the point, it's a challenge, after challenge, after challenge. Only if you step outside your comfort zone and question the million status quos will you reap the Scrum and agile benefits. There is no other way.
There is no cheap Scrum.
But if you decide to challenge yourself, there really are no limits to what you can achieve.
*Bill Hicks once said - "It must me hard for those who take authority as the truth, rather than the truth as the authority"