Scrum, agile & .NET (in CT, MA, NY & RI)

Jeff Sutherland has a presentation he calls “Shock Therapy: Bootstrapping Hyperproductive Scrum”. In that talk, he lays out a plan for new teams to get hyper-productive, fast.

The talk speaks to a pattern, the Mastery pattern:

1. Level 0: Do the prescribed steps over and over without questioning “why”. Develop skills. “Wax on, wax off”.
2. Level 1: Develop new values from the new behaviors; do the behaviors and see results. And in so doing, develop some new values. This is competence.
3. Level 2: Develop new beliefs from the new values you are now carrying. This is ‘embodying the values” or internalization. Basically, this is belief change. Now you measure all you do against the core values supported by the new beliefs. This is discipline.
4. Level 4. All behaviors, value and beliefs are in full alignment. NO more need for prescriptive procedures; all actions are in full alignment with underlying beliefs and of course values. Actions are extremely efficient and 100% intuitive. This is Mastery.

Scrum is a discipline. You start by doing the prescribed steps. Then you “get” the values. Then you develop supporting beliefs. For example, you develop a belief that prediction is pointless early in a project. Etc. Once you hold the supporting beliefs, there is no need for acting on a prescription; you can behave in full alignment with Scrum values and core supporting beliefs… while improvising, and customizing Scrum to match the teamwork/project situation.

This pattern manifests in martial arts, market trading, and Scrum. Any discipline you pursue takes you down this path where the Mastery pattern manifests.

The Scrum and agile community has some experts and they are saying prescribed procedures are unnecessary. This is true for experts but very VERY untrue for non-experts. If you are new to Scrum and agile, or just 2 years in, stick to the prescription until you are a master.

It is no accident that the keeper of the Scrum framework and the Scrum values is called the ‘Scrum Master’.

Mastery has EVERYTHING to do with Maturity Models like CMMI. Interested in ‘Maturity Models’ ? Then you are very interested in Mastery. See also this book:

Mastery by George Leonard.

Scrum defines these items in clear terms.

Each Role is clearly defined.

Boundaries are clearly defined.

Tasks are clearly defined.

The Authority granted each Role and Task is clear.

Fuzzy definitions for “BART” properties leads to all sorts of waste.

It is no accident Scrum is clear on these items.

In the military, when BART definitions are unclear, people can and do DIE.

In business, when BART definitions are unclear, people can and do CREATE TONS OF WASTE.

In personal relationships, when BART definitions are unclear, people can and do CREATE TONS OF DRAMA.

Learn about BART.

Warning: once you start defining and policing your personal Boundaries, you begin to see the effects of Repulsion and Attraction. You attract people that like clear Boundary definition, and you repel people who do not.

A great exercise is simply to try to get ONE Product Owner and ONE Backlog in a large organization, on any project in that organization. Here, you are attempting to implement Scrum, and actually, you are defining BART properties for a Role and a Task.

BART analysis explains a great deal, and does so with amazing clarity.

Watch how the drama-generating and waste-generating types run away … when you start, with BART.

Entrainment is a physical phenomenon exhibited by oscillating systems– systems that generate vibrations and waves.

Vibrations have a frequency. Entrainment comes into play when two oscillating systems generate waveforms at sufficient amplitude to exert influence on each other. Via the process of entrainment, the slower oscillating system speeds up, and the faster oscillating system slows down. The result is a new composite frequency that is exhibited by both systems.

If one system is oscillating and the other is at rest, the at-rest system tends to assume the frequency of the oscillating system. This effect is also a result of the entrainment phenomenon.

Entrainment is best observed with tuning forks. Take two tuning forks, place one on a surface. Next, get the second tuning fork vibrating. Then, place the second tuning fork in close proximity to the at-rest tuning fork. You may then easily observe the entrainment phenomenon.

Tuning forks influence each other, via entrainment

It is not a huge leap to see how Scrum is leveraging the phenomenon of entrainment via periodic, predictable iterations. In small companies, Scrum’s iterations cause entrainment in nearby processes like Quality Assurance and other forms of planning and scheduling in a company. When taken to extremes, Scrum can drive the entire pulse of a organization.

In larger companies, certain cycles are already in place. For example, the QA department in a large firm already has a predictable cycle, usually monthly, for planning software releases. Here the Scrum iterations need to get in and stay in sync. This is entrainment.

People involved in Scrum certainly come to expect regular (iterative) cycles punctuated with a demo and retrospective. Nearby processes, such as management processes may be strongly influenced by Scrum’s periodic iterations, which are in effect a kind of vibration with properties like period, frequency, amplitude.

Scrum’s iterations strongly encourage entrainment. Understanding the entrainment phenomenon is helpful in understanding the power of Scrum, and how Scrum actually works. It is no accident that the first question of the “Nokia test” for Scrum is the question “Are you doing iterative development?”

Scrum is an oscillating system, and subject to influencing (and being influenced by) the entrainment phenomenon.

See also:
Entrainment explained

Scrum is now the de facto “gold standard” for managing all kinds of work …. with empirical process control. Scrum’s 3 Roles, 3 Ceremonies, 3 Artifacts and 3 Best Practices conspire to create a remarkably simple framework for solving all sorts of process-management problems.

Scrum is an adaptive framework, so it can handle all kinds of challenges. The trick in adapting Scrum to the situation is simple: your adaptation of Scrum must be 100% aligned with Scrum’s values. Do this, and you get authentic Scrum in your adaptation of it.

There is a project with worldwide scope, that is a non-IT project. It is run and executed by volunteers. It’s called the [pmi-agile] project.

The mission of the project is as follows:

“To add value to all Project Management Institute (PMI) practitioners, by equipping them with Agile knowledge, and Agile skills.
”

Scrum is adapted to manage this huge effort. The effort to bring Agile to the PMI community may well be the most distributed, complex, totally ambitious, wide-scope Scrum project ever attempted. Consider this:

1. It’s a non-IT project and the workforce is 100% volunteers.

2. Part of this project involves establishing a PMI “Community of Interest” on a worldwide, global scale, for all PMI practitioners. The PMI’s forthcoming Agile Community of Practice is the place where PMI members find resources and knowledge resources on Agile and Scrum.

3. Part of this project involves enabling Agile education in every PMI chapter across the entire globe.

4. Part of this project involves mobilizing and engaging the entire Agile community, worldwide, in the effort. This is because the PMI is a worldwide organization with local chapters across the globe.

5. Part of this project involves creating knowledge resources: a Knowledge Base, a web site, several wiki pages, downloadable files, etc. These knowledge resources have to be cross-cultural, that is: understandable from both PMI-community and Agile-community points of reference.

6. Part of this project involves collaborating closely, face-to-face, with local PMI chapters, to bridge cultural gaps and build understanding in both directions.

7. Part of this project involves engaging active Agile user groups across the entire globe.

8. The specs for the project are ever-changing, and subject to events as they unfold.

9. The workforce is distributed across every time zone on earth.

10. The workforce is composed of workers from both PMI and Scrum/Agile communities. Each volunteer has varying levels of PMI knowledge and Scrum/Agile knowledge.

It is within this setting that the leadership of the project must create a structure for managing the work. And we are choosing Scrum. So in essence, we are managing a worldwide, distributed, non-IT, all volunteer project, with ever-changing requirements, with no clear project “end date”, using Scrum.

This is the coolest Scrum project on the planet, ever. Nothing of this kind has been attempted. Ever. The project has the potential to involve the entire Agile community, probably 200,000 people, with 50,000 certified Scrum Masters, and it involves the entire PMI community, over 500,000 PMI members, in a massive, distributed, global, ongoing, all-volunteer effort to bring Agile knowledge and skills to the PMI.

The adaptive Scrum framework can handle it. We are actively adapting Scrum to manage this project. Our adaptation of Scrum is 100% consistent with Scrum’s values; our adaptation of Scrum is therefore authentic Scrum.

The [pmi-agile] project is the coolest Scrum project on earth, and the widest-scope Scrum project ever attempted.

Check it out: The [pmi-agile] Wiki informational site

See also:
The [pmi-agile] Global Collaboration Epic (One of 7 Stories on the top-level [pmi-agile] Backlog)

Jeff Sutherland often refers to Scrum’s “immune system” in which people that are unproductive or wasteful are strongly encouraged to reform their behavior, or exit the team. You can examine such a post from Dr. Sutherland here.

One thing I notice and pay attention to a lot lately is attraction and repulsion. This is a common, universal theme throughout the physical world. At the micro level, single cell organisms are repelled by toxins and attracted to nutrients. At the macro level, planets and solar systems are held together through the opposing forces of attraction and repulsion.

Scrum sets up a space that is mostly psychological in nature. One of the authors that strongly influenced the formation of Scrum is Ikujiro Nonaka, whose co-authored the influential paper, The New New Product Development Game. He later co-authored another paper about creating and influencing the psychological space for work, which he calls the “ba”. It’s an interesting concept.

One aspect of this “space” is: what it is actually attracting, and what it is actually repulsing.

In Scrum we value clearly defined goals, learning by inspection, and attention on the goals. In Scrum we do not value ill-defined objectives, predictions, or distractions. Scrum is attractive to people who value what Scrum encourages. Scrum is repulsive to people who value what Scrum discourages.

So here we see the dynamic of how what is attracted defines what is repulsed, and vice versa.

This applies to everything, not just Scrum. Scrum places value on focus and attention, so it repels “lack of focus” and distractions.

If we attract clear thinking, we repulse fuzzy, unclear thinking. If we value learning by observation, we repel the propensity to predict.

Scrum’s simple set of rules creates an environment or space or “ba” with properties of attraction and repulsion. The repulsion aspect forms the basis of a kind of Scrum’s immune system. In Scrum, through the held values, a culture of attraction and repulsion emerges. Attractive behaviors (focusing attention, sincere effort) are honored, while repulsive behaviors (laziness, waste production) are dishonored.

The end result is a self-governing, self-correcting system, based on a simple short set of rules. That “system” or “space” created by authentic Scrum is constantly integrating what is valued and attractive…and purging what is not valued and therefore repulsive.

This is the essential beauty of Scrum.

See also:
Attraction and Repulsion

That’s the title banner on Ken Schwaber’s website, www.controlchaos.com.

It’s an important fact to pay attention to.

A clear thinker does not really need Scrum per se, because a clear thinker already embodies and internalizes Scrum values. Scrum-like behavior, consistent with Scrum values, naturally follows. In the abstract, Scrum is a kind of harness around group effort that prevents wasteful behavior. Scrum is enforced and structured “common sense”.

Internalizing Scrum values is not a quick process if you are not already there. Getting there can be bumpy. If Scrum resonates with you, it is because you already value at least some of what Scrum values: clear thinking, attention on what matters, focused effort towards stated intentions, etc.

Scrum in all about aligning intention with results. If you say you want working software, and actually you do, then you become very willing to do authentic Scrum. And you get working software as a result. You “behave your way” to your intended outcome, using Scrum to guide you.

When I do Scrum coaching, and the client starts drifting from authentic Scrum, I just remind them. I remind them of their stated intention: “working software that end-users value.”. Then I remind them that authentic Scrum can really get them there. Finally, I describe how the change in Scrum they want to make diverges from authentic Scrum, and how that will take them further away from the results they say they actually want.

Scrum is “structured common sense”. It’s an adaptive framework. Those new to Scrum take this to mean they can pick and choose from the Scrum practices, or expand it to include more roles. That’s generally wrong. Scrum is an adaptive framework. Experts know how to adapt Scrum to the situation, without conflicting with the Scrum values. For example, Scrum tends to value simplicity over complexity. You see it with the 3 Scrum roles. The minimal set of 3 roles serve to greatly reduce complexity. Adding more roles makes no sense in Scrum, because doing so is inconsistent with valuing simplicity over complexity. A Scrum expert does not add roles to a Scrum implementation. That is because the expert internalizes (and in fact embodies) the essential Scrum values.

This thing, about Scrum values, is a big part of what separates a true Scrum expert from a competent practitioner. The expert can adapt Scrum to the situation, without ever compromising the common-sense integrity of Scrum itself.

“Agile” the umbrella term is said to include Scrum and many other methods like XP, TDD, etc. This puts the cart before the horse.

Scrum is about common sense. The reality is that common sense is not all that common. Here we see why Scrum has so much traction.

We say Scrum is the now-dominant Agile method for managing work. In truth, Scrum is the framework… within which all the other Agile methods can find a place. Scrum organizes work. Scrum does not define how to do work. Scrum instead sets an environment or “situation” or space (or “the ba”) for executing on work. The ‘how’ of the work is not defined in Scrum. This is a feature, not a bug. Scrum is adaptive precisely because the ‘how’ of the work is left up to you.

Scrum defines “the space” to do work. Scrum creates a set of containers. Scrum provides a structure (a “framework”) for setting up all kinds of work executed in groups.

We often say Scrum is an Agile technique or method, and fits under the Agile umbrella with all the other Agile methods. Not true. Scrum is the top-most container, useful for organizing the implementation of all the other Agile methods.

For example, imagine an Agile project, implemented in your organization, without Scrum. What you get is Agile confusion and potentially, Agile chaos. This chaos is driven by semantics and the perceived meaning of words like “iteration”, “planning”, “Agile”, etc. Scrum cuts through all of that, by providing clear definitions for the roles, ceremonies, artifacts and best practices utilized to manage the project. The short list of Scrum ground rules and associated definitions cuts way down on complexity. This is the essence of Scrum’s effectiveness.

Therefore, to think clearly about Agile, start thinking clearly about Scrum. Scrum is the topmost container, the adaptive framework, into which you may insert any and all the tools and techniques that are perceived as useful in executing the work. Scrum adaptive framework provides clarity of execution and purpose.

In practice, authentic Scrum contains authentic Agile, not the other way around. When you get this, it is easy to get clear on all the Agile methods.

Scrum contains them all.