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SCRUM Down! The not so dirty world of teamwork May 19, 2008

Posted by Murray Brook in Technology.
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Image Source: http://www.rfu.com

9.00am Saturday morning, temperature about 30 degrees Fahrenheit. 15 bleary-eyed teenagers stagger out on a frozen field to ‘enjoy’ being pulled, mauled, smashed, bitten and trodden on by what seems to be a never ending supply of large opponents who seem to be very angry for some reason. An hour later we could sit back satisfied that we had given our all only when we were ‘caked’ head to toe in mud with a small trickle of blood leaking from somewhere on our heads.

Fortunately, when Inovis adopted the Agile development methodology “SCRUM,” they weren’t seeking to just bully their teams by comparing them to larger more aggressive teams; they were realizing that for today’s software market we have to be able to deliver on three main goals:

1) Short time to life – Delivering code in weeks & months, not quarters and years.

2) Building better software – The empirical, iterative model allows for the reality that the first delivery of code isn’t always perfect. The redeeming factor is that you don’t have to wait 6 months to perfect it, you only wait two weeks.

3) Responding to the game when it’s actually happening – Historically, Product Managers have used their best resources to define the roadmap for a their product, however when you realize that you are defining what will be needed in a year you are always somewhat concerned that your new features will just not be as ‘hot in the market’ when they finally arrive. SCRUM allows you to deviate from a plan to accomplish a short term market requirement, and then catch back up to the original plan, all the while perfecting and measuring whether you want to deliver now with what you have, or go the whole way checking that you are still on the right track. SCRUM forces focus and visibility to all aspects of delivering software, and as long as your company is mature enough to be able to look at itself honestly you can achieve an overall better product in a shorter time, even if you have made some changes along the way. I’ll start posting more on my involvement with the SCRUM working practice as we start to bring our first deliverable to the gate. Let me know what your experience with SCRUM has been. From product management to development. Any and all comments welcome.