(2021-07-13) Jeffries/Windmills: Can Scrum Be Fixed?

Ron Jeffries: Windmills: Can Scrum be fixed? I’ve been trying, so far without success, to get useful attention from the Scrum Alliance.

wondering whether “we”, as a community, could “fix” Scrum, by changing the world’s understanding and execution of Scrum.

The good news on this is that there are a lot of opportunities to “fix” Scrum.

There are many reasons not to tilt at this windmill. There are many fun and valuable things we could do

But Scrum is almost ubiquitous and in addition it is found almost everywhere. If we could make it a few percent better, the world impact could be large, because of the large number of people working Under the Thumb of Scrum.

One large question, for me, and for anyone I might be able to recruit to this effort, is whether Scrum is worth fixing

My own current view is that, subject to terms and conditions to be worked out, Scrum isn’t a bad way to work. Scrum, if you fuzz your eyes just right, is like XP except it forgets to mention how to actually do the work

Of course, I’m talking about Scrum By The Book, not Scrum On The Ground. Scrum On The Ground is often just horrid, and that version should in fact be burned to the ground. (dark scrum)

*can we find a useful way to do only good things and make the Scrum ecology a better place to be?

I honestly don’t know. Let’s talk about some issues.*

Scrum Issues

The Developer

My own hobby horse, of course, is the plight of the software developer in Scrum

Management

The SIC offers “Leadership” training, in aid of this. As with most everything outside the ScrumMaster training, there is limited uptake

I think we can be sure that they won’t read long books. Maybe some shorter ones?

Imposition

I’ve written elsewhere on how I would “impose” Agile

Scrum Coaching

The Scrum Alliance could be seen as trying to build a monopoly around Scrum coaching. I know many of the individuals involved in its program, and I think they are sincerely trying to create a series of learning objectives and hurdles to produce good coaches. The monopoly aspect is still troubling.

Broken ScrumMaster Strategy

This is a serious concern that is rather hidden. In Scrum, it is the job of the ScrumMaster to explain Scrum to the team, to the Product Owner, and to everyone else in the company who needs to understand it. Yet, the average ScrumMaster is a retreaded tester

This issue may lie at the base of a lot of Dark Scrum.

“But We Have Courses For That!”

The standard Scrum Alliance position on Scrum dysfunction seems to be “We have a course for that. We told them what to do. If they don’t listen, it’s on them, not us.”

Now, in a sense, this whole windmill idea is about picking up the slack that that view leaves, but if the SIC is going to stamp out unqualified people as fast as it seems to be able to, we’ll never catch up.

What Might Be Done?

in Scrum, there is, I believe, a collection of issues that are commonly encountered, with a collection of “fixes” that are commonly tried, which fit into patterns of help.

Let me take what I think is a fair example, what GeePaw Hill might do, compared to what I might do

there are a number of common reasons why they don’t get anything done, and they mostly come down to trying to do too many things that are too large. So, maybe, possibly, we could “all” be sure to be describing the problem in our own way, but a consistent way, and the solutions in our own way, but a consistent way

And I think most of that help needs to be free, or nearly so. Not that we all don’t need to make a living: we do.

So. Is it possible, sensible, rational for us’ns who know some things to come together in a loose kind of way and try to focus enough light and heat on Scrum as to soften it up, shape it better.

Windmills 2: Fixing Scrum

Responses from Scrum officials to my recent Scrum articles here and on more private slacks have not been favorable. I think I’ll sum up and move on for now.

Where I’m At

Starting Point

I think the Alliance and I start from the same recognition: the CSD program has essentially failed in the marketplace. Few courses have been sold, and the CSD rolls contain a tiny fraction of the CSM rolls, when they should be three to ten times larger

We even agree, I think, that the prior program was too expensive in time and money

Management doesn’t know that developing in an iterative incremental style is different, so they are not open to the need for learning

Moving Forward

This effort started in 2018

Certification-Centered

The approach taken, as I see it now, was to replace the then-current CSD certification offering with a new and better certification offering. The fundamental assumption was that the offering would be certification. That’s a natural assumption for the Scrum Alliance and its trainers and reps, because it is essentially the essence of the Scrum Alliance strategy

Solve the Cost Problem

So we “know” that our certification program is too costly in time and money. What do we do? Simple and obvious. We refactor the program so that it delivers value sooner and at a lower cost. “Incremental Release”, they seem to have called it. The idea was fairly simple

Offer at least two levels of certification, CSD and Advanced CSD

They seem to have chosen to put introduction of ideas in the first set, CSD, and the practice of ideas in the second

And since the course seems to be aimed at two days, there’s not much room for programming in there if you’re going to cover the material.

there’s the question of whether this is a good split.

should the course be concept first, then practice?

It seems clear that the refactoring team decided that it should be. I think that there is a strong argument about doing it the other way.

Value

If offered the choice between a programmer who knew what TDD was, and a programmer who had actually done TDD, which one would be more valuable?

question that arises is, of course, is it possible?

I’m not sure

it might well be possible to design a course with two days of instructor contact that gave developers real practice in doing TDD and refactoring, and, at a stretch, maybe even incremental development.

To me, the purpose of CSD was to provide developers with the basics of the ability to deliver software iteratively and incrementally.To me, we have taken a single unit that did that, CSD, and divided it into two units, CSD’ and A-CSD, and removed the basics of the ability to the end

So I think the refactoring is at best shipped in the wrong order, and at worst is not the right split, since it seems almost to force delivery in that order.

Prospects for Progress

I’ll mention some areas where progress should be made in my view.....

This is the same list, in a slightly different form, that I’ve been touting in recent articles, and in communication with the Scrum Alliance since at least 2018. Progress against the list has been, dare I say it, limited. I’ve not even seen recognition of the ideas much less sensible reasoning about them.

Windmills 3: You don't LOOK Scottish ...

I’ve think I’ve figured out the disconnect between my view of the Scrum Developer priorities, and those of the Refactoring Team who created the new CSD track.

Scrum’s view: Scrum works.

My view: Devs need developer skills

I believe it is the lack of those skills that is holding back Scrum teams who aren’t completing the increment.

How might it work?

The new CSD is far less costly, and with any luck at all, it will demonstrate the value of the ideas and arouse a hunger for more.

This is a credible argument, at least to me, and I have neither data nor logic to refute it.

So am I on board now?

this is arguably an incremental improvement over the old CSD.

And, no: But here’s my list, the current version of the list I’ve been pushing since way back when Chet and David and I originally defined CSD:.....

The new CSD program is #4 on this list. As far as I know, there is no commitment or progress on numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6.

Perhaps I can be forgiven for thinking that we can measure how much they care about the developer under Scrum by assessing how much they talk about and work on all six of these items.