Slow Thinking for successful Sprints!
Ways to apply the manifesto for Slow Thinking in Projects or Sprints so that it leads to successful Scrum implementation.
Purpose!
Predominantly agile transformation journey begins with Product mindset be it large-sized organisations or startups. There is a lot of emphasis on shifting focus away from the Projects to the Product mindset driven approach especially while implementing the Scrum Framework. This mindset enables the leaders of the organization with a paradigm shift to focus on outcomes over outputs using a holistic approach for succeeding and sustaining in the world where Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity is most prevalent.
Nevertheless, it was a euphoric moment when I stumbled upon the manifesto for Slow Thinking in Projects. This Manifesto by Karen Schmidt & Frank Habermann is part of “Over the Fence”. This article is a pure reflection of my inferences by enacting this manifesto while working in Sprints within the Scrum Framework and its affinity towards empiricism. Likewise, I encourage everyone to explore it as it is simply amazing! The content of the article is structured in three parts starting with What? then How? and finally, Key Takeaways so that readers could benefit most from it.
What?
Now you may think, What is the correlation between this manifesto and the Sprint? First, let us understand ‘what is Slow Thinking?’, then gradually let us move on to the Scrum Guide, the source of truth.
Basically, our human brains have the ability to think in two modes namely Fast Thinking and Slow Thinking depending on the context and situation. Fast Thinking 🗯 is the ability to instantly react and respond to a situation while dealing with simple and emotional decisions. Fast Thinking is also known as “Systems 1 Thinking”. In my view, Fast thinking is suitable and successful to solve simple challenges.
Slow Thinking 💭 is the act of a conscious decision-making process thinking in a systemic fashion by applying focus and deliberate effort while dealing with complex problems when cognitive things are at play. Slow Thinking is also known as “Systems 2 Thinking”. In the interest of the purpose of this article, I will not dive beyond this point into the term Slow Thinking, however, to know more it is highly recommended to read this book, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
Scrum is a reliable framework to discover and solve challenges that arise within a complex ecosystem in an empirical manner.
Scrum is more suitable for building and releasing product increments every Sprint. Every Sprint could be considered as a Project, where we can frequently inspect and adapt in a transparent way with the help of the Sprint Goal. The Sprint Goal signifies the overarching business objective and provides focus, guidance, and direction aligning to the product roadmap and vision. Hence, the Scrum framework clearly denotes that Projects are still relevant within Scrum in the form of Sprints as long as they are carried out in an empirical manner.
Scrum is a framework for developing, delivering, and sustaining complex products. — Scrum Guide 2017
Each Sprint may be considered a project with no more than a one-month horizon. Like projects, Sprints are used to accomplish something. — Scrum Guide 2017
How?
Given that Projects are compatible with the Scrum Framework. So, it is equally important that each of us understands, How this manifesto complements the Sprint and supports empiricism? It completely depends on the way we visualize and perform activities appropriately and that matters the most.
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. — Wayne Dyer
It is interesting, isn’t it? Now let us explore each statement of the manifesto and its alignment with Sprint to understand its relevance with the Scrum events by applying the Slow Thinking Manifesto.
1. Questions before answers
This statement resonates well with the purpose of the Sprint Planning event. As we know by the end of the Sprint Planning event, the Sprint Goal and the formulation of flexible and emergent Sprint Backlog is a must. The people fulfilling the roles within the Scrum Framework must be open, curious to ask questions before focusing on the solution. By asking below listed questions at the Sprint Planning event.
- Why are we planning to build an increment in this Sprint?
- What customer pain points are we solving this Sprint?
- What business objective are we trying to accomplish this Sprint?
Though some may feel that answers are very important to do things right like implementation and execution. I would like to emphasize that finding answers will be beneficial and useful for everyone at Sprint Planning as long as they address the right questions for the right things.
2. Observations before evaluations
This statement resonates well with the Daily Scrum event. After the Daily Scrum, the observations are more important before evaluation. For instance, people observing the flat burn-down chart quickly arrive at conclusions. They evaluate that the Development Team has pulled up a story that is large enough to complete which resembles the Fast Thinking ability of their brains. On the other hand spending effort by trying to ask the Development Team the challenges they are facing and then considering evaluations based on them relates to Slow Thinking. The observations could be the patterns of the Development Team engages itself during the Daily Scrum.
Hence, the evaluations done might lose their point, if the observations are not noticed appropriately. Empiricism will not be upheld in its true essence in such instances as mentioned in the below statement.
Adaptation without observation and reflective inspection misses the direction. — Gunther Verheyen
So Slow Thinking enables us by providing a myriad of observations that will help us categorize the behaviors that are both complementing or conflicting the purpose of the Daily Scrum listed out below to arrive at actionable evaluations.
Complementing behaviors
- Highly collaborative and synchronized conversation amongst the Development Team focusing on the Sprint Goal.
- The Development Team members holding each other accountable for the purpose and time-box.
Conflicting behaviors
- Open-ended discussion beyond time-box without a focus on the Sprint Goal.
- The Development Team discussing the solution for a problem called out by a team member.
- Each member of the Development Team is providing status updates to each other.
3. Change of perspective before the point of view
This statement resonates well with the purpose of the Sprint Review. As the whole purpose of the Sprint Review is to elicit feedback and foster collaboration between the Scrum Team and key stakeholders. Employing the change of perspective during the event is very crucial to deeply understand the reasons to gain insightful feedback. For instance, it helps to visualize key aspects of the customer behavior changes based on a recent feature launch. This will help in beginning the right conversations to optimize the value to identify the right set of Product Backlog items for the upcoming Sprint.
The customer behavior changes need to be clearly understood before we listen and share each other's point of view statements at the Sprint Review. The Scrum Team and the stakeholders must focus on exploring and understanding customer perspectives like demographic details etc. in a deliberate manner by applying Slow Thinking. After that move towards sharing and expressing their point of view statements for any further call to action. The perspectives can be explored using the below questions,
- What are the conditions that drive customer behaviours to buy or use the services offered within the product?
- What are the challenges that customer faces while using the product and how valid they are?
4. Self-reflection before criticism
This statement resonates well with the purpose of the Sprint Retrospective. As the purpose of the Sprint Retrospective is all about identifying actionable continuous improvement items for the next Sprint. The action items are identified across the domains of people, relationships, ways of working, and development practices. Self-reflection evokes our Slow Thinking ability to build awareness either individually or as a group of individuals with respect to the Scrum Team during the Sprint Retrospective. People due to their Fast Thinking ability might quickly label the term criticism relating it to a negative connotation although there are many forms of criticism. I would like to stress that constructive criticism is helpful when it results in creative tension within the Scrum Team. This creative tension fosters the dynamics of team engagement and optimises their collective performance.
Self-reflection can be done using the questions below,
- What are the top 3 action items that help us work together a whole team to achieve our Sprint Goal at the earliest?
- What are the changes in our belief system that would increase the impact of the product?
- How can we improve our ways of working to improve product quality consistently?
- What are the key improvements to build sustainability as part of our work?
🔑 Key Takeaways
In a complex ecosystem, there are plenty of benefits by employing the Scrum Framework. Likewise, Slow Thinking enables us to consider decisions that are reliable in a complex situation provided we spent some conscious, deliberate effort on it which leads to meaningful outcomes. According to my perspective, Slow Thinking is an enabler to a leader's decision-making process due to its fit for purpose to solve complex challenges at hand in an emergent manner using the probe-sense-respond technique and hence it proves the alignment with empiricism.
The benefits of Slow Thinking could be realised to the fullest potential in every Sprint only if all the members within the Scrum Team spend some considerable effort in applying it. So that a Done increment is delivered to the market which is useful and beneficial for the customer in order to maximise and optimises the product value. Although many would challenge that, It is easier said than done. I would say continuous practice and learning by doing is the most optimal way to achieve success.
Finally, I would like to convey an indispensable message to all the leaders be it Team Leaders, Agile Leaders, Servant Leaders, or Product Leaders, etc. Slow Thinking Manifesto aims to build and improve the emotional intelligence capabilities of every leader. An emotionally intelligent leader knows what? and how? to drive the engagement of the people working within the organization to achieve and sustain high performance.
Specifically, I would highly recommend all the Scrum Master’s to embrace the Slow Thinking mindset to achieve sustainable success by actively engaging in conversations with people to increase the efficacy of empirical ways of working across the organization.
Engagement is the Key — Gunther Verheyen ,Scrum Day Denmark 2019
Thanks for reading the entire article. As always, I am open and eager about hearing each of your valuable thoughts and feedback to inspect and adapt in my next article. Sharing and Caring is the art of learning in a complex ecosystem!
