Review of “Scrum” by Jeff Sutherland: Takeaways
This is a continuation of my writing series #TrustYourHustle. I’m sharing stories related to creativity, productivity, responsibility, and leadership. Click here to read the previous story.
Jeff Sutherland, the author of Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice in Half the Time is a graduate of United States Military Academy — a Top Gun of his USAF RF-4C Aircraft Commander. Jeff flew more than a hundred missions over North Vietnam. After 11 years in the military, he became a doctor at the University of Colorado, School of Medicine. He also got involved in data collection and IT systems development at the same institution (University of Colorado).
What is Scrum?
Scrum is a framework for enabling business agility at scale across an entire organization. It is a framework for project management (practise of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria at the specified time) that emphasizes on teamwork, accountability, and iterative progress toward a well-defined goal.
The Principle
Scrum involves cross-functional teams creating lists to work on. The teams consists of 3 roles.
- Product owner. He/she holds the vision of what is supposed to be achieved. The Product Owner is accountable for risks and rewards — what is possible, what should be done, and what he/she is passionate about.
- The team. These are the people who’re doing the actual work. A cross-functional team — a team that have all the skills needed to take the Product Owner’s vision and turn it into reality. A team of 3–9 is the rule of thumb.
- Scrum master. This is a person coaching the rest of the team through the Scrum framework, and help the team eliminate anything that is slowing them down.
Product Backlog
This is a list of everything that needs to be built or done to make the vision a reality. The Product Owner should consult with all stakeholders and the team to make sure that they’re representing both what people want and what can be built.
After coming up with a Product Backlog, the next step is refining and estimating the Product Backlog. This involves planning with clarity and reality, not fantasy.
Sprint Planning
This is the first meeting in a Scrum setup. Scrum master, team, and Product Owner sit down to plan the Sprint. During the meetings, the team looks at the top of the Backlog and forecasts how much of it they can complete in this Sprint. Also, during the meeting everyone should agree on a Sprint Goal, what everyone wants to accomplish with the Sprint.
Making work visible
I’ve experienced a lot of arguments about this. I like how Scrum goes through it. In Scrum, there is a Burndown Chart. On one axis is the number of points the team has taken into Sprint, on the other is the number of days.
Daily Stand-up/Daily Scrum
Jeff refers to it as the heartbeat of Scrum. Each day, at the same time, for no more than fifteen minutes, the team and the Scrum Master meet and answer 3 questions.
- What did you do yesterday to help the team finish the Sprint?
- What will you do today to help the team finish the Sprint?
- Is there any obstacle blocking you or the team from achieving the Sprint Goal.
Watch this video, explaining DAILY SCRUM.
Sprint Review
This is a meeting where the team shows what they’ve accomplished during the Sprint.
Watch this video from Jeff (writer and co-creator of Scrum) explaining Sprint Review.
Sprint Retrospective
After the team has shown what they’ve accomplished during the last Sprint — that thing that is “done” and can potentially be shipped to customers for feedback — they sit down and think about what went right, what could have gone better, ans what can be made better in the next Sprint. What is the improvement in the process that they, as a team, can implement right away?
Watch this 👇 video, explaining Sprint Retrospective.
BTW, for deeper knowledge about the above terms and processes, grab your copy of the book, Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time on Amazon or any other bookstore near you. Specifically, go to Appendix — IMPLEMENTING SCRUM: HOW TO BEGIN (pages 234–238).
Now, let me share some of my favourite takeaways from the book.
Planning is useful. Yes, that’s right. I know you’ve heard of the saying “Plans are worthless, planning is everything”. But there is one more important element not covered in this common saying: blindly following plans is stupid.
Change or die. Clinging to the old way of doing things, of command and control and rigid predictability, will bring only failure. In the meantime, the competition that is willing to change will leave you in the dust. Not my words. The words from the general himself, Jeff Sutherland.
Here is another line from the book that I love;
Fail fast so you can fix early. Corporate culture often puts more weight on forms, procedures, and meetings than on visible value creation that can be inspected at short intervals by users. Work that doesn’t produce real value is madness. Working product on short cycles allows early user feedback and you can immediately eliminate what is obviously wasteful effort.
Hesitation is death. You wondering what that means? Just these four steps: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA). Know where you are, assess your options, make a decision, and act!
Great teams are. Cross-functional, autonomous, and empowered, with a transcendent purpose.
Don’t guess. [Instead], Plan, Do, Check, Act. Plan what you’re going to do. Do it. Check whether it did what you wanted. Act on that and change how you’re doing things. Repeat in regular cycles, and, by doing so, achieve continuous improvement.
Blame is stupid. Don’t look for bad people; look for bad systems — ones that incentivize bad behaviour and reward poor performance. ~ Jeff Sutherland.
This next takeaway is important. Take time to understand it. Be careful.
Demo or die. At the end of each Sprint, have something that’s done — something that can be used (to fly, drive, whatever).
Multitasking makes you stupid. Doing more that one thing at a time makes you slower and worse at both tasks. Don’t do it. If you think this doesn’t apply to you, you’re wrong — because it does.
Half done is not done at all. A half-built car simply ties up resources that could be used to create value or save money. Anything that’s “in process/progress” costs money and energy without delivery anything.
Working too hard only makes more work. Working long hours doesn’t get more done; it gets less done. Working too much results in fatigue, which leads to errors, which leads to having to fix the thing you just finished. Rather than work late or on the weekends, work weekdays only at a sustainable pace. And take a vacation.
I have a question. Ahaha. Sounds awkward, right? Anyway, how can I measure the sustainability?
The map is not the terrain. Don’t fall in love with your plan. It’s almost certainly wrong.
The next takeaway is something I’ve been making mistakes on on almost daily basis when I’m arguing! It is one of my best lessons in life. It changed my perception of “getting things done”. Here it is;
It is the journey, not the destination. True happiness is found in the process, not the results. Often we (especially me) only reward results, but what we really want to reward is people striving toward greatness.
Make work visible. I’ve already talked about it. Very important. #BackUpYourData
Happiness is autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Everyone wants to control their destiny, get better at what they do, and serve a purpose greater than themselves.
Rip up your business cards. Get rid of all titles, all managers, all structures. Give people the freedom to do what they think best and the responsibility to be accountable for it. This is what Tunapanda Institute has been practising and I like it. It allows everyone to unveil their creativity when attacking different challenges/projects.
…That’s what I hope you’ll take away from this book: the knowledge that it is possible — that you can change things, that you don’t accept the way things are.
Don’t listen to cynics who tell you what can’t be done. Amaze them with what can. ~Jeff Sutherland.
Jeff added this quote at the end of his book;
All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. ~ T.E Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
You can also watch Jeff’s TEDx Talk below.
