They can strengthen each other! — Here’s how
Heart of Agile vs Modern Agile vs Scrum
We do Scrum and… — episode 3
As I noted in my article about Heart of Agile vs Modern Agile these two concepts can work perfectly together.
Below are the principles of the two concepts:
Heart of Agile
- Collaborate
- Deliver
- Reflect
- Improve
Modern Agile
- Make safety a prerequisite
- Make people awesome
- Deliver value continuously
- Experiment and learn rapidly
You can use both concepts together to improve how you do Scrum.
It is relatively easy to see that the Scrum framework aligns with Heart of Agile. The team members collaborate to deliver items. At regular intervals (at least during Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective), they reflect and improve, which is equivalent to Scrum’s “inspect and adapt”.
But there’s more to it. Here are 4 examples how you can add Modern Agile.
Case 1 — Make people awesome
The setting is a team that creates items and at the Sprint Review they are showing the results to a number of business stakeholders.
During the Sprint Retrospective the Scrum Team asks the following Modern Agile question: did we make our users awesome with the items of our last sprint? The verdict may be that they don’t know. The actual users were not in the loop. The team decides to do something about it. They will invite the users to the Sprint Review.
They went full circle with Heart of Agile’s ‘collaborate, deliver, reflect and improve’ on ‘make people awesome’ with Scrum.
Case 2 — Deliver value continuously
A team has a 2-week sprint and plans all items for the sprint during the Sprint Planning. They have to work hard to get the items done in time.
During the Sprint Retrospective the Scrum Team asks the following Modern Agile question: did we deliver value continuously? They may come to the conclusion that they didn’t, because they only deliver ‘done’ work at the end of the sprint. They decide to slice the items to smaller pieces while these pieces still deliver value. They now will be able to deliver items throughout the sprint.
They collaborated, delivered, reflected and improved on ‘deliver value continuously’ within Scrum.
Case 3 — Experiment and learn rapidly
A team is used to slicing epics into a number of stories and then prioritizes these stories. Once the stories are done they will start with the next epic.
During the Sprint Review they receive feedback that the items that they have been working on don’t exactly bring the anticipated value to the users. This requires a lot of rework.
While at the Sprint Retrospective the Scrum Team asks the following Modern Agile question: did we experiment and learn rapidly? The answer is ‘no’. They decide that in next sprint they will work on a small experimental item and have it tried out by the users almost immediately. They expect this will give them the proper feedback to understand what the user wants. They will collaborate, deliver, reflect and improve on ‘experiment and learn rapidly’, using Scrum.
Case 4 — Make safety a prerequisite
During a refinement session a team asks the Modern Agile question: will the items that we are going to pick up be safe for the end-user? The team may have a list of safety topics that need to be adhered to, which are part of the Definition of Done. As a result the items will have user safety topics included to the backlog items.
During Sprint Review the team will get feedback about the items, including the safety topics. And during the Sprint Retrospective the team will check if the user safety items were properly addressed and if the safety items require an update.
The team collaborates, delivers, reflects and improves on how they address ‘Make safety a prerequisite’ in a Scrum setting.
Final words
Heart of Agile describes the essence of many Agile practices, including Scrum. “Collaborate, deliver, reflect and improve” can be found on many levels of Scrum. The same 4 things can also be applied on Modern Agile. Whenever you want to tackle a certain item that you can identify with one of the four principles of Modern Agile you can use Heart of Agile to have them addressed properly.
Hence: Scrum, Modern Agile and Heart of Agile can go hand-in-hand to help improve your daily work.
Did you like the article? Then it would be awesome if you’d clap 👏🏻. I am also very keen to learn what you think about this topic.
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