A “SCRUM” OF STARTUP MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES

Over the last couple of weeks the CRL Reading Club selected, read and reviewed Jeff Sutherland’s book

“Scrum — The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time”.

The review sparked lots of discussion and opinions on various management techniques and particularly revolved around the choice of waterfall management vs scrum methods for start up companies.

It also allowed the CRL Community to share some great stories from their experience of using these techniques and others.

“The review was great!!! So many engaged conversations, opinions, views and ideas in just over 90 minutes!!!” — Konstantin

Waterfall Management

Waterfall management allows the manager figure in the company, usually the founder, to direct his employees to complete the work planned out in a predetermined gantt chart. As with larger companies the manager takes responsibility for the company and the work completed.

Scrum Methods

Whereas newer Scrum methods place responsibility of the company on all of the team members and therefore there is no manager of the team, just a product owner and scrum master. The team then work to smaller deadlines in sprints and create a fluid plan that constantly changes and evolves as each team member selects tasks that fit their skill set.

Hierarchy, Discipline and Communication

Many of the CRL teams have used many of the scrum techniques and have found various positives and negatives to the methods. Most of the teams liked the lack of hierarchy in a small team and felt this created a great bond between members who could both. However some of the small teams struggled to complete some of the methods such as a daily stand-up meeting as they felt that as a team of two or three, they felt their communication was already strong within the team.

The Need for an Inspiring Leader at the realm

One team, in their own words, “played the devil’s advocate” during the review, stirring arguments about leadership and sharing their experience, in which they found that their team was more successful with an individual driving the team and providing a vision to follow and work towards.

Here is a great TED talk by Itay Talgam who discusses different models of leadership from the perspective of a symphonic orchestra conductor. It’s as entertaining as it is enlightening.

The CRL community are now pitching their ideas for the next CRLRC read! What are your recommendations?

27/04/2016 written by MEGAN BATES