Scrum Thoughts #2

a collection of recent missives from the corporate badlands

A collection of short LinkedIn posts, spur-of-the-moment thoughts, written in the spring of 2024, in haste, in reaction—the only kind of writing I seem to do these days. I invite you to comment here, or on join the conversation on an original post by clicking its link. I present the seven posts here in chronological order, oldest first..

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Not Agile

The things they say…

"The Agile Manifesto is not agile" — it hasn't changed for 23 years!
"Scrum is not Agile" — the framework is described as "immutable"!

Well... In case it is not obvious (and apparently it isn’t) this is by design. A cup designed to hold liquid cannot itself be liquid. Difficult to even imagine. The cup must be solid, unbendable, rigid even—immutable definitely. Foundations for a building cannot be soft. We cannot build our houses on sand. They will certainly collapse. We need rock.

The Manifesto for agile software development is a foundation, a base line, a rock. Scrum is a container; it holds and allows agility. Each in its own way is solid, unbending, irreducible. Luckily for us. Think about that, just a little, before you rile against their "lack of agility". In both cases, it is you that is being asked to be agile. [original post]

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Getting fired—a rite of passage

The first time I was fired I wrote an email to the company that began, "So long, and thanks for all the fish." (You either know or you don't.) I was the proverbial messenger that got shot. My message was Scrum. Executives liked the 10x promise—they did not like the radical change it required.

The second time I was fired, was, ridiculously, from the same company that fired me the first time, ten years earlier. I wrote of that experience here: Corporate Culture, a short story.

I say there were only two times; in truth there were many, but they don't really count as the rest were all from contract positions. The common pattern is that I spoke truth to power. Power does not like that. Fix my people, they say. I tell them the people are doing well. Let me help you I offer. "Get lost", they tell me, "I'm fine".

I always tell my students, if you haven't been fired at least twice, you're not yet a real scrum master. Work harder. [original post]

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Lone Star

I received this TrustPilot feedback today (18/03/24) for my CSM held this past weekend. A lone one-star review amidst a sea of fives. My immediate response was surprise, followed by sadness, followed by gladness. Such mixed, contradictory emotions!

First, the gladness: I am not a trainer, so being a poor one is neither here nor there. Indeed, better to be a poor trainer than a good one, as the latter would put me out of integrity. I am not a trainer as my students are not dogs or circus animals [ref]. They are humans. I create multi-directional learning experiences where people's brilliance is unleashed—i.e. it can be unleashed, if they so choose.

So onto sadness: how sad that this individual spent sixteen hours of their life in a class they found to be "poor" and not once were they able to speak up and say so, and they somehow felt unable to leave. What torture! Imagine: they were surrounded by forty-or-so people, vocalising their enjoyment, engaging in the learning, challenging one another, and generally having a good time, while all the time feeling hard-done-by, feeling poor, thinking "poor me!", cheated out of hundreds of dollars (so actually being poorer) and not able to say a word until after it all ended when they could anonymously enter two words on a form, with the compensatory satisfaction of being able to say: Hah! take that, you sub-standard trainer!

Scrum, at its most elemental, is about taking responsibility for your own work, and your own learning, your own development. It is also about failing fast, and moving on. How surprising then that some people are so locked in compliance that if sent to a class they feel imprisoned and unable to simply get up and leave. What are we doing to people in our world of corporate control and compliance? It's as if this person has had their soul torn out, their spirit crushed and mangled on the corporate floor. For future reference, y'all, please don't come to my CSM class (or any workshop of mine) and expect to sit in belligerent, resentful silence and be spoon-fed "training", like a baby. It's time to grow up. Dislike my workshops if you choose, they are, by their nature, imperfect, but please articulate your dislike in real time, face-to-face, courageously—and take action. You are not a prisoner. Honestly, I weep for you. [original post]

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Corporate Scrum

A bicycle is a really good machine. But let's see if we can make it better... It's probably the wheels that make it so good, so replacing them with better, more expensive wheels will make a better bike. Big wheels seems to be the thing, so get giant wheels, six feet high! Our bicycle will tower above everyone else's.

If it's the brakes that make a bike good, then adding more brakes will surely make it a better bike. Brakes everywhere! Brakes even on the brakes—don't say we are not innovative. If the saddle is key to success than making a more comfortable saddle will improve the bike. Add cushions and a back rest. And if sitting is good, surely lying down is better. Add a bed. Probably also need a sleep mask, to be sure. Add more cogs to make more gears. You have ten gears? Hah, we have one hundred. Lightweight pedals are better too, so make new ones out of polystyrene—no, feathers!

Still not the greatest bike in the world? It's probably the colour. Repaint it and add some "go faster" stripes, that'll fix the problem. The relationship between the parts? What does that mean? I do relate to the parts. I know how to make each part better. I am a senior executive—I know about such things. And I've hired a BikeMaster. What could go wrong? Welcome to the world of #CorporateScrum. [original post]

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Corporate Happiness

I penned my thoughts on corporate happiness eight years ago, during a time when it seemed every other LinkedIn post was about how to be happy, or happier—or even happier than that! Of course, happiness isn't free, and the posts came with the inherent message that the more I paid the happier I'd be. I was driven to write my counter post, challenging the very notion of happiness as a commodity.

Nothing much changed, of course, but eight years on I've noticed a new surge of happiness packages. Perhaps LinkedIn has flagged me as unhappy, demotivated, miserable, or even (due to my age) a grumpy old man. "Get off my lawn you young people with your motivational memes and your commodified happiness!"

LinkedIn algorithms continue to be a mystery to me, but thus flagged, I reckon I get more than my fair share of this stuff. I have tried to block such posts with the various LinkedIn flags available, but to no avail. They just keep coming. So once again I countered, sharing a list of articles and research papers indicating a strong correlation between seeking happiness and being stressed out and miserable. I was instantly blocked by one of the Happiness crew, a bit surprising, but as it means I don’t see that particular set of posts any more, it's a small win, I guess.

If you’re interested in the counterpoint to Commodified Happiness, please read my eight-year-old post, where I offer a collection of other articles and papers also challenging the notion of happiness as a goal, or a permanent state. If you’re not much of a reader, check out The Oatmeal’s comic story about unhappiness [ref]. Join me in a day of disgruntlement, annoyance, irritation, despair, and deep sadness at the unjustified assassination of genuine happiness. I thank you. [original post]

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Tradesmen & Gummy Bears

Twelve years ago, Joshua Kerievsky wrote a blog post titled "Stop Using Story Points" [1]. While proving how useless, burdensome and time-draining this method of estimation was, he also offers an excellent alternative: Team Weeks. I summarised his (very long!) post in my own words, recasting Team Weeks as Team Days [2], which had been my experience of this way of estimating, the two are essentially the same.

Over those past twelve years people continue to use story points, somehow believing that only the too-fine-grained "ideal person hours" or the too-coarse-grained, vague, and non-committal method of tee-shirt sizing to be the only alternatives. To those people I say read Joshua's article.

Today I left a comment on one such post asking, would you be happy if a tradesman told you a job you needed doing was an extra-large, or was estimated at 5 gummy bears. Almost certainly not. You'd want to know when the job would be completed. You are the customer. That's completely reasonable. Why do Scrum teams think it is okay to treat customers with such contempt as to confuse them with cutesy systems of effort estimation that mean nothing to them? Let's actually have meaningful conversations, where requesters and responders both are transparent, so can be properly aligned with one another. [original post]

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The Ballet Guide

Last night, my family enjoyed a performance of Prokofiev's "Romeo & Juliette" by the Northern Ballet. While appreciating the almost perfect collaboration between movement, music and visual art, I was struck by just how simple ballet is:
• Five positions of the feet
• Five positions of the arms (+ resting)
• Seven movements: bend, stretch, rise, turn, glide, dart and jump, of which there are,
• Five jumps: 2:2, 2:1, 1:2, 1:same, 1:other

That's it really. And from that simple framework is born immense beauty. One could imagine that if there were a #BalletGuide it may have an end note that reads something like...

"Ballet is free and offered in this guide. The Ballet framework, as outlined herein, is immutable. While implementing only parts of Ballet is possible, the result is not Ballet. Ballet exists only in its entirety and functions well as a container for all kinds of stories, costumes, props, staging, music, recording techniques, design methodologies, and physical practices." [original post]

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I hope you enjoyed these thoughts. Please add a few of your own in the comments, or navigate to the original posts to join the conversation/s.