Virtually yearly, on or round April 1, Mountain Goat Software program releases a brand new mock product for the agile trade. This 12 months, we’re introducing the Scrum Police.
On the brand new, official Scrum Police website you possibly can report crimes towards Scrumanity, view a log of current convictions, and even confess your individual crimes earlier than you might be turned in by your teammates.
Be part of the Enjoyable at ScrumPolice.com
The crimes vary from actually foolish to a little bit bit detrimental to your workforce’s well-being. Listed below are only a few examples of some that gained’t actually land you or your workforce in jail, however I wouldn’t essentially advocate:
It’s enjoyable, it’s humorous, nevertheless it’s additionally unusually true.
Agile Is About Suggestions, Not Guidelines
The concept for Scrum Police got here from the truth that increasingly more folks appear to wish to codify agile right into a set of strict guidelines: “You could do that” or “When you do not do that or all of that then you definitely’re not doing it proper.”
Right here’s my recommendation: Make suggestions not guidelines. There are only a few hard-and-fast guidelines to being agile:
Past that, it is way more about suggestions. And there are many issues we have realized within the a number of many years now that agile processes have been round, even in casual varieties.
For instance, I like to recommend groups use consumer tales as their method to necessities. I like to recommend groups use story factors for estimating. I like to recommend that the workforce choose a day aside from Mondays for beginning their iterations. I like to recommend the Szechuan Hen at Spice China.
However none of this stuff is required for fulfillment with agile. Every might assist a workforce be higher, and I’ve causes I like to recommend every. However this stuff should not required.
There Is No One True Option to Be Agile–Or Is There?
It doesn’t matter what the Scrum Police say, there isn’t a excellent path to agility that works for each workforce, each time.
Like many issues in life, a number of approaches can work.
For instance, there are two equally handy routes from my home to the airport. The quickest is to take a toll street that passes a couple of mile from the home and goes on to the airport. However that prices $8. The opposite route takes about 10 minutes longer, however saves me these eight {dollars}. Generally I take the primary route. Different occasions, I’ll take the second.
There’s nobody excellent means for me to get to the airport. Equally, there’s nobody excellent means for a workforce to be agile. Because of this agile is greatest outlined by its rules relatively than particular practices.
Regardless of this, there are individuals who assume agile could be become a set of thou-must-do-it-this-way guidelines. Some folks inform me each workforce advantages from timeboxed iterations (sprints). Others insist that two-week sprints are at all times one of the best. A preferred e-book on Scrum insists that the every day scrum have to be performed left to proper beginning with the particular person to the left of the ScrumMaster.
They don’t. They aren’t. And it shouldn’t.
Scrum is intentionally incomplete. Certain, some group of gurus might get collectively and determine as soon as and for all what dash size is greatest. They may determine that every one sprints ought to begin on Tuesdays, and that groups should do pair programming on precisely 70 to 80 % of all code they write. However these are choices greatest made by the workforce.
And similar to me en path to the airport, some groups will select a technique, and others will select one other. And that’s the way it must be.
So, maybe there may be one true method to do agile—the best way that works greatest for every workforce.
And for individuals who don’t agree, there’s at all times the Scrum Police.
