Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time. Jeff Sutherland and JJ Sutherland
There’s a rule of thumb in software development circles that the best programmers can be ten times as productive as average programmers. This is the underlying argument for why organizations seek to find and hire the best people. There is research to support this disparity in productivity. There is similar research on the relative productivity of teams. There, the range in productivity between the best and the rest is closer to two orders of magnitude; as much as a 1,000 times more productive.
Jeff Sutherland makes the case that the practices that collectively make up “Scrum” are one strategy for realizing those kinds of payoffs.
Sutherland is a former fighter pilot, a software developer, one of the original signatories of the Agile Manifesto, and the inventor of Scrum. This is his story of how Scrum came to be, what it is, and why it’s worthwhile. The particular value of the book is its focus on why Scrum is designed the way it is and why that matters.
Scrum’s origins and primary applications have been in the realm of software development. Sutherland builds an argument that Scrum’s principles and methods apply more broadly. Although he doesn’t make this argument directly, this wider applicability flows from evolutionary changes in the the organizational environment. Changes in the pace and complexity of organizational work simultaneously make conventional approaches less effective and Scrum more so.
Scrum is a collection of simple ideas; it’s a point of view about effective problem solving more than a formalized methodology. That’s important to keep in mind because like too many solid ideas, the essence can get lost in the broader rush to capitalize on those ideas. There appear to be an unlimited supply of training courses, consultants, and the usual paraphernalia of a trendy business idea; you’re better off spending time reading and thinking about what Sutherland has to say first. That may be all you need if you’re then willing to make the effort to put those ideas into practice.
Sutherland traces the roots of Scrum to the thinking underlying the Toyota Production System. He also draws interesting links to John Boyd’s work on strategy embodied in the OODA Loop and to the martial arts. Scrum is built on shortening the feedback between plans and action. It is a systematic way of feeling your way forward and adapting to the terrain as you travel over it.
Sutherland draws a sharp contrast with more traditional management techniques such as Waterfall project management approaches and their well-worn trappings such as Gantt charts and voluminous unread and unreadable requirements documents.
Understanding the managerial appeal and limitations of these trappings is key to grasping the contrasting benefits of Scrum. Waterfalls and Gantt charts appeal to managers because they promise certainty and control. They can’t deliver on that promise in today’s environment. In the software development world, they never could and in today’s general organizational environment they also come up short.
Understanding that appeal and why it is misplaced clarifies the strengths of Scrum. There was a time when managers came from the ranks of the managed. They had done the work they were now responsible for overseeing and were, therefore, qualified to provide the direction and feedback needed to pick a path and follow it. Management was primarily about execution and not about innovation.
The illusion in waterfall and other planning exercises is that what we are doing next is a repeat of what we have done before. If we have built 100 houses, we can be confident of what it will take to build the 101st. If we are building a new road or a new bridge, then what we have learned from the previous roads and bridges we’ve built can provide a fairly precise estimate for the next.
This breaks down, however, when we are building in new terrain or experimenting with new designs. The insights and experience of those who’ve built in the past don’t transfer cleanly to this more dynamic environment. The world of software has always been new territory and we are always experimenting. The terrain is always in flux even when the technology is temporarily stable. Now, it is those who are doing the work who are best positioned to plan and manage as we move into new territories and terrain.
Scrum comes into play when we are moving into territory where there are no roads and are no maps. If you are moving into new territory you can only plan as far ahead as you can see. There are no maps to follow. Sutherland puts it thus:
Scrum embraces uncertainty and creativity. It places a structure around the learning process, enabling teams to assess both what they’ve created and, just as important, how they created it. The Scrum framework harnesses how teams actually work and gives them the tools to self-organize and rapidly improve both speed and quality of work.
There’s a terminology and a set of techniques that make up Scrum. Sutherland covers the basics of such notions as scrum masters, product owners, backlog, sprints, retrospectives, communication saturation, continuous improvement, and stand up meetings. But he’s no fan of turning these into dogma.
Scrum runs the risk of being viewed as no more than the latest management fad. Sutherland is a true believer and has evidence to support his belief. There are lots of true believers but only a few are willing to bring substantive evidence to back up that belief. That earns Sutherland the right to offer his own closing argument:
What Scrum does is alter the very way you think about time. After engaging for a while in Sprints and Stand-ups, you stop seeing time as a linear arrow into the future but, rather, as something that is fundamentally cyclical. Each Sprint is an opportunity to do something totally new; each day, a chance to improve. Scrum encourages a holistic worldview. The person who commits to it will value each moment as a returning cycle of breath and life.
The heart of Scrum is rhythm. Rhythm is deeply important to human beings. Its beat is heard in the thrumming of our blood and rooted in some of the deepest recesses of our brains. We’re pattern seekers, driven to seek out rhythm in all aspects of our lives.
What Scrum does is create a different kind of pattern. It accepts that we’re habit-driven creatures, seekers of rhythm, somewhat predictable, but also somewhat magical and capable of greatness.
When I created Scrum, I thought, What if I can take human patterns and make them positive rather than negative? What if I can design a virtuous, self-reinforcing cycle that encourages the best parts of ourselves and diminishes the worst? In giving Scrum a daily and weekly rhythm, I guess what I was striving for was to offer people the chance to like the person they see in the mirror.