Real Scrum vs Easy Scrum

In the first course (almost always the CSM course), I have people wanting, in simple terms, one of two things. With little compromise between.

One: Real Scrum.

By this I mean everything in the Scrum Guide plus all the better patterns around that.

Two: Easy Scrum (aka Half-baked Scrum)

This is Scrum compromised quite a bit to fit quickly and nicely, after many deletions, into your current organization.

Those are the two options. Let’s talk further about what I am calling Half-Baked Scrum. (Yes, I might be biased. But my bias is based on wanting you and your team and your customers to have a much better life.)

Several things can be said…

a. Easy Scrum can be implemented quickly in your current environment. This definitely feels like an advantage.

b. It is much less effective than Real Scrum.

c. Real Scrum feels impossible to implement (quite commonly). To be fair, it can be hard and it can take some time. And it takes, virtually always, some courage and a lot of persuasion.

d. To be fair, Half-baked Scrum is usually a nice improvement over what your firm is doing now. It is tempting.

e. Most people who are requesting “easy” over “hard” — do so usually because they have no idea of the benefits of Real Scrum, and how much difference it can make.

Anyway, Half-baked Scrum is interesting in some ways, even though it does have a bad name (I think).

But Real Scrum, once you get it to happen, will serve you better.

The key problem for me is two-fold.

First, in the first course particularly I am responsible for introducing you to Real Scrum aka all of Scrum, and Full Scrum. Along with a small set of the better patterns that should accompany it. And it takes me almost a full two days to do that.

Second, when they say they want Easy Scrum, what that really is varies a lot, depending on their situation. The truth is, what Easy Scrum would be would vary for each person and each situation, to a fairly notable degree.

And that leads to a problem for me. It takes too long to explain. There is no way I could explain Real Scrum and Easy Scrum both in two days.

So, what is possible?

First, I want the students to understand clearly what Real Scrum is.

Not with the idea that they will do it all immediately (usually not possible), but with the idea that they will learn it, and strive to get it fully implemented soon.

And we take some of the time in the course to talk about how to start implementing Scrum in many of the common situations.

I hope this now explains my attitude in the course, but more importantly my attitude about how you go about implementing Agile-Scrum with greater and greater success at your place.

Bon voyage!

 

« « What is Agile Transformation? || Info for SurveyMonkey Survey » »