Over 10 years ago I saw a presentation by my friend Jennifer Fox on Usability. In this presentation Jen displayed a slide of a giant jar of peanut butter with a red line through it. “Usability is not peanut butter,” Jen said with a smile.
I remember thinking, “What on earth is she talking about?” It seemed like a very strange and rather strained metaphor, but I listened intently, interested in where she was going to go with it.
Given that I remember Jen’s slide 10 years later, I have come to appreciate her brilliance. Strained metaphors can really stick, like… well, you know. I have decided to steal the idea and apply it to Scrum.
Scrum is not Peanut Butter.
You cannot just spread Scrum on top of whatever you were doing and expect it to taste yummy, and somehow work.
I told you it was a strained metaphor, but it does work.
I know from personal experience it can be really easy to scale agile to a large number of people. But you have to start out with the goal of scaling in mind. You cannot just spread Scrum on top of your existing organization like peanut butter.
Fortunately, I have an alternative to the peanut butter method. It you are trying to roll out Scrum to a large number of people, and you want it to be smooth and effective, follow this simple formula:
- Get a core group of employees who are willing to commit to giving Scrum a try, about thirteen people. Train them all in Scrum.
- Select 9 to be the Scrum Team. One to be the Scrum Master. One to be the assistant Scrum Master. One to be the Product Owner. One to be the Assistant Product Owner.
- Train the Scrum Master folks to be Scrum Masters. Train the Product Owner folks to be Product Owners.
- Start doing Sprints.
- Get good at Scrum. Use outside coaching to help.
- Do some more Sprints.
- Do not grow beyond this core team until they are having repeated successes across multiple sprints.
- When this team can be successful, split the team into two teams, add additional members to each team to get back to the staffing levels at step 1.
- Repeat steps 2 through 6. Run at least two months before splitting teams again.
Mature Scrum teams grow through cell division. If you follow the mathematics of doubling, this pattern scales to even very large organizations very quickly. Lets check:
- Team Size 13 – 2 Months
- Team Size 26 – 4 Months
- Team Size 52 – 6 Months
- Team Size 104 – 8 Months
- Team Size 208 – 10 Months
- Team Size 416 – 12 Months
- Team Size 832 – 14 Months
- Team Size 1664 – 16 Months
- Team Size 3328 – 18 Months
- Team Size 6656 – 20 Months
In less than 2 years you can effectively scale full mature scrum teams to over 10,000 people, one step at a time, one division at a time–carefully, methodically, predictably, and reliably.
If you run a very large development organization you should be quite happy with a two year adoption timeline, this is very fast change for a large organization. A lot will have to be put in place to make this work but it can be done. And, by growing your scrum abilities in this way, the entire process of changing core behaviors of the organization becomes much less painful.
It really really works.
Scrum is not peanut butter.
You cannot just spread it on top of an existing organization and expect it to taste good. But, with a little planning, you can divide and conquer.
-Tom
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What if a Scrum Team Briefly Needs a Specialist?
In large companies, we often find people with quite specialized knowledge who are resources shared across the company. The company does not want to dedicate these people to one team. But scrum teams are co-located and dedicated. Everyone is on the team all the time to avoid the bottlenecks that occur when someone is not available when needed.
If the person has knowledge needed by the Scrum Team, and is really that much in demand throughout the company, there is a large risk that the specialist is not available when needed. Which is why we really wanted the person on the team to begin with – so that the knowledge is available to the team when needed.
What to do?
In the long term, what you really want to do is pair someone with the specialist to learn what the specialist knows. When the knowledge transfer has happened, find 2 more people to pair with the original specialist and the new specialist. Do this as much as you need to share the knowledge broadly. Then the specialist ceases to be a bottleneck.
In the short term, try as much as possible to organize your work to depend as little as possible on the specialist. Perhaps you can put all the work that needs the specialist into one iteration and have the specialist dedicated to your team for just that one iteration.
If you need regular time with the specialist over many iterations, try scheduling a fixed time every week. Get this on the specialist’s calendar as soon as you know the specialist will be needed, well in advance of when you really need the specialist’s time.
If the specialist is expected to produce a deliverable, do not let them do it!! Rather, pair the specialist with someone else on your team who actually does the work while the specialist assists. This increases the knowledge in your team and makes you less dependent on the specialist over time.
No matter what suggestion you think is interesting in this article or other ideas you find, be sure to COMMUNICATE and COLLABORATE with management and the specialist. Communication and collaboration are foundational to Scrum. These are the most important things we do.
Geri
Working the Same Hours
For a Scrum team to work together effectively, they need to be at work at the same time.
Everyone.
At the same time.
The team will have to come to agreement on those hours, but that means, for example, that the whole team is there from 8am-5pm with a one hour lunch break from noon-1.
I know some of you are unhappy about that. But really, how can you expect to work directly with someone if that someone is not there.
Remember a Scrum team is not a collection of individuals who happen to be working on the same project. A Scrum team is a group of people working literally together on something. Like an old-fashioned barn raising where everyone is lifting the roof of the barn up at the same time. You won’t get the roof raised if one person shows up from 9-10, then two more come from 10-noon, then another 3 come from 1-4. You need the whole crew there at the same time to lift together.
Now some teams will set “core hours”, say from 10-3, when everyone is required to be there and meetings can be scheduled (and why we are talking about meetings for a Scrum team that are together all the time is a mystery to me).
What this really means is that this team has introduced inefficiency and the probability of work blockages the other 4 working hours of the day. So this team has cut their effective work time in half. And what do they gain?
Well, this person has to drop their kids at school, and that one has to pick them up after school, and the train schedule means someone else will be late, and ….
What you are saying is that it is more important to optimize the individual.
But Scrum and Agile teach that you get the greatest gains and benefits by optimizing the team. Oh, and a lot of other studies show the same thing. Optimizing the individual is sub-optimal.
You have to all work the same hours. People in most other industries make it work, when they really have no choice of their work schedule. A Scrum Team can do it as well.
It’s that important.
Geri
Maturity Model for Scrum
We’ve been talking about metrics and KPI’s and such at work quite a bit. But I’ve been so busy with so many things, I just couldn’t seem to get my head around it.
Then the other night, I was so frazzled, I decided to go out to my favorite steak place for a quiet dinner alone, not even a book or newspaper to read, just me with my own thoughts. I placed my order, sank into my seat with a sigh, and suddenly the pieces of a maturity model were all in place. Before and after the salad course, I wrote the descriptions of levels of maturity below.
Note that a person could be different levels of maturity for different Scrum practices. Over time, we hope each member of our Scrum community reaches level 5 on all parts of Scrum.
Geri
Level 1 – Beginner: Do what you are told
The person is doing the practice because he/she is told to do so. There may be verbal direction or posters to remind the person to do the practice.
We measure: Is the person doing the practice consistently.
We measure at this level because we believe there is an intrinsic value in doing the practice even if it is not done well.
Think “Karate Kid” – wipe on, wipe off
We cannot explain to a person at this level why the practice is important because the person cannot understand the explanation. They have to experience the practice first.
If the person is complaining about doing the practice, the person is at Level 1.
Level 2 – Apprentice: Doing it by habit
The person is doing the practice as a habit. There is no longer a need for verbal direction or posters as reminders.
We measure: Is the person doing the practice all the time without direction.
We measure at this level because we believe there is an intrinsic value in doing the practice habitually.
Think of someone who has been driving for a while – they no longer think about how to drive a car, they just do it.
The person has begun to value the practice because they have experienced it. Some explanation of why the practice is important will work because they have a basis of experience to understand the explanation.
If the person stops talking about the practice, the person is at level 2.
Level 3 – Journeyman: Improving your practice
The person is doing the practice well. The person has reached a level of understanding that makes them understand the benefits of doing the practice well, and they value the practice enough to want to improve it.
We measure: Is the practice performed with good quality.
We measure at this level because we believe there is greater value in doing the practice well.
Think of a young child constantly asking questions about things.
The person has good understanding of the practice, its importance and benefits. Deeper explanations of the practice are now possible because the person has reached a point of personally valuing the practice and is interested in learning more.
If the person is asking questions about how to do the practice better, the person is at level 3.
Level 4 – Teacher: Sharing what you know
The person is effectively teaching others to do the practice. The person is able to teach others because the person has the experience and understanding to be able to effectively communicate the basics of how to do the practice as well and communicate the fundamentals of why it is important.
We measure: How effectively is the person sharing the practice with others.
We measure at this level because we want the practice to spread throughout the organization.
Think of Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society
The person has deep knowledge of and substantial experience performing the practice. The person is starting to learn about things related to the practice and understanding those relationships.
When you hear the person sharing their knowledge, the person is at level 4.
Level 5 – Master: You have gained profound knowledge
The person has gained profound knowledge of the practice to the point where the person can consider modifications to the practice because they understand it so well that they also understand other ways to get the same or greater benefits.The person can combine and correlate this practice with other experience to create new explanations, new understandings of the practice.
We measure: Is this person able to create consistent, coherent training and messages about this practice.
We measure at this level because we want to continue to evolve the practice.
Think Master Shifu in Kung Fu Panda.
The person has profound knowledge of the practice, its importance generically and to the organization, and the domain the practice is part of. The person writes the training and messages that others deliver.
You hear this person engage others in discussions about the deeper foundations of the practice.
Geri
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Deming's “No Rework” Misunderstood in Software
I love reading W. Edwards Deming, as well as books on Kaizan, Lean, and the Toyota Way. When I ran The Menlo Institute we even hosted a Deming night where we would watch old Deming videos and discuss how they applied to the field of software development.
I am less inclined to encourage people to read these subjects today. Not because what what they say is any less relevant, but because people do such a poor job of translating what they say about factory production work into the very different field of knowledge work that is software development.
For example: A core value featured at the opening of Deming’s “Out of the Crisis” is “No Rework.”
It is relatively clear what this means on for the blue collar worker on the factory floor, but it is not clear at all what this means for the knowledge worker.
To see why this is a problem lets apply the philosophy of “no rework” to another area of knowledge work–writing a book. “No rework” could be misapplied to mean don’t send the draft copy of the book to an editor and incorporate their changes, that would be rework, hence it would be waste. Not lean.
Clearly that can’t be right.
It is a flawed understanding of rework applied to writing. Generally when I give this example people get a feel for the problem. For some reason it is not obvious to people when they misapply the idea of “no rework” to writing software.
They are misapplying it, all the time.
I fear the solution may be to warn most people off reading Deming or studying Lean in that they so clearly and so frequently get it wrong. Instead, I will write a series of articles on what is and isn’t rework in software development. Once you understand that, you have my blessing to study Deming.
Tom
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