Background
Attended the SCRUM Workshop, in short, it is a must for all developers/Architects/PM/Program Manager/Tester/BA.
SCRUM Values
In SCRUM, we value: -
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Completed functionality over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
How SCRUM Helps?
- Works Transparency - Everything is transparent to the corresponding stake holder, customers and even to the team. Burn Down Chart, Team Velocity.
- Self Empowered and Organized - SCRUM Team work as a whole to estimate and agree on deliverable achievable.
- Collaboration - The transparency of the progress, status and facts allows the SCRUM team to collaborate and interact more to the stake holders, customers on change plan without over optimistically committing to the request too easily.
- Recognize the needs to change - The only thing remain unchanged in this world is the change. It recognizes it and put focus on what is best known currently and do it while anticipate future changes is needed.
- Incremental Release - Encourage frequent release with each release being workable deliverable as a whole, in a smaller but manageable incremental scope.
- More and frequent planning - SCRUM does more planning, Product Road Map, Release Plan, Sprint Plan. However, only the highest priority which needs immediate work gets the detail plan, tasks, estimation and etc.
- More Meeting - Daily SCRUM meeting. Daily SCRUM meeting on What is done, what is not, what is on your way.
- More Frequent Reviews - Sprint Reviews at the end of each Sprint on what is completed and what is not by adhering to Definition of Done.
- Sprint Retrospective Meeting - After the sprint reviews with Product Owner excluded. Discussed on what's good and bad as project is still ongoing. To know the problem earlier, learn and improve as a continuous effort and avoid repeating the same mistake within the coming Sprint.
- Product Owner - Single person to have final authority representing the customer's interest in backlog prioritization and requirements questions. This ensure no missing link or tear down at communication.
- SCRUM Master - As a facilitator to work with the product owner and the team to orchestrate the SCRUM ceremony.
Untrue SCRUM/Agile Myth
- SCRUM does not do documents or reporting for communication!
- SCRUM is only focus on the worker (developers) not the business!
- SCRUM does not need a Leader!
- SCRUM makes impossible turns possible!
- SCRUM prevents problems and it is a "silver bullet"!
- SCRUM is self organized and self empowered, so, "Do whatever you like!"
- Agile Fragile! No planning and architecture needed.
- Agile is just an iterative and incremental process.
- Adopting Agile means betraying PMI.
- Agile means no/avoid commitment.
Reality to Untrue SCRUM/Agile Myth
Reality to Myth #1:
In SCRUM, we emphasize on automated and integrated workspace. We produce artifacts such as: -
- Product/Release/Sprint Back Log
- Product/Release/Sprint Burn Down Chart
- Team Velocity Matrix
- Estimation
Reality to Myth #2: -
SCRUM is highly business value driven approach. It focus on business values to the customer than the scope or what customer "think" they want. It ensure the customer is not buying just a set of feature scopes, but the business values to the customer, sooner and earlier. Often, we see projects delivered all the scopes their respective customers wanted but the customer isn't happy in the end because it does not fulfill the business need. This is what SCRUM is trying to avoid.
Reality to Myth #3: -
In SCRUM, we are changing the game plan. Managers are too used to Directed management style. These managers need followers. They ensure the best arrangement of work to candidate who they think best working with. Often, their best people usually does not work best under such "arrangement". Think again, the best people who does well in their work are already put on to manage role, so is there anymore best people? So, in SCRUM, we coach, mentor and lead by example. We value facilitator management than directed management. This requires a capable leader with great leadership skills and interpersonal skills to make possible.
Reality to Myth #4: -
In SCRUM, we value transparency and we focus on start delivering sooner with multiple release that ships incremental of workable solution subsets. This usually help to discover and manage the impossible sooner and allow the customers to justify their decision quicker and change of game plan earlier. Hence it helps to see the fails sooner to avoid greater lost because the nature of identifying risks/impossibles sooner, the customers often can then make justifiable decision to counter the issues earlier and has higher success rate than those that can't help in identifying risk earlier.
Reality to Myth #5: -
In SCRUM, no way you can prevent problems. However, its emphasize of being transparency will let the problems to surface earlier than one would expect. These surfaced problem are Impediments in SCRUM which requires the SCRUM master with great skills to help facilitating with the team. This impediment may be impacting the productivity of the team but SCRUM allows it to be surfaced sooner and dealt with earlier and quicker. However, to some extent, people often associate this nature as a SCRUM problem itself.
Reality to Myth #6: -
In SCRUM, we need a highly discipline members that stay focus and continue productivity with consistent pace for predictable estimation. SCRUM team works closely achieving Goals and Expectation put up front by Product Owner who represents the Customers with Customers interests and expectations. SCRUM Master as a facilitator is trying to collaborate between Product Owner and the team and orchestrating the each SCRUM ceremony. Everyone has their role and game plan and this discipline must be closely adhered to.
Reality to Myth #7: -
In SCRUM, we do more planning. Product/Release/Sprint Planning. We do more risk management. Product/Release/Sprint Burn Down. We do more reviews and we do more retrospective meeting (postmortem) than anyone else, however this are done interactively within each sprint and making us so efficient in dealing with problems because we see problems sooner, efficient in learning because we see our weakness earlier, and etc. In SCRUM we need architecture to work best, however, we avoid architecture details being too detail too soon because we recognize the only thing remain unchanged is "change".
Reality to Myth #8: -
In SCRUM, we measure our productivity velocity based on facts (the earlier Sprints' velocity from the burn down) and commit to tasks within our capability. We aimed to deliver potentially shippable solution with a current subsets of product features that delivered business values where our customers need it NOW, not just want. It is not as simple as incremental, but it has a lot to do with customers' business plans and strategy and delivering the needed business values.
Reality to Myth #9: -
Wrong. We see there are many rooms for Agile PM. While PMI emphasize on: -
- Project Integration Management
- Project Scope Management
- Project Time Management
- Project Cost Management
- Project Quality Management
- Project Human Resource Management
- Project Communications Management
- Project Risk Management
- Project Procurement Management
Reality to Myth #10: -
In SCRUM, we commit to deliver the agreed task items in sprint planning that was put forward together with Product Owner, SCRUM Master and the team. We commit to stay focus and deliver potentially shippable working incremental subsets of solution features. We valued transparency and we work well with fixed cost fixed schedule projects and we collaborate with the customers on business values needed than the scope wanted. Estimates derives from the past velocity remains "estimates" and in short we practiced Agile Principle by working on estimation with commitment and remain transparent, at the same time willing to adapt to the change by encouraging collaboration with customers based on facts collected from the SCRUM artifacts.
Hi, we use Scrum org wide for project management, and its working well compared to waterfall method. As part of company sponsored training, I also got my agile scrum certification Scrum Master Certification recently.
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