This article addresses the frequently asked questions when discovering Agile and Scrum. You will read about what Agile is and how Scrum will help you achieve all the benefits of having good agility.

What is an Agile Framework?

It is a modern way of prioritizing customer satisfaction, technical excellence, and effective collaboration when developing and delivering a product. In fact, the term Agile is a simple abbreviation given to represent a set of values and principles aimed at better managing the changes in software development while always focusing on customer satisfaction. An Agile framework means following a structure that highlights the values and principles outlined in the Agile software development manifesto. http://agilemanifesto.org/iso/en/manifesto.html

It was defined in 2001 when several thought leaders met over a weekend to discuss the advancements in software development. Some of them had already explored frameworks like Scrum and Extreme Programming.

Since 2001, the use of the manifesto has spread and inspired the creation of other frameworks, such as Kanban. Over time, many other industries (like Marketing, Communications, and Food Industry) have started to draw inspiration from the manifesto to better respond to changes and deliver more value to their clients.

Today, the simple term Agile is often used to refer to the application of the manifesto in all its forms.

What is Scrum?

Scrum is a framework in which people can solve complex and adaptive problems while delivering the highest possible value products in a productive and creative manner. It is quite a simple framework, consisting of 3 roles, 3 artifacts, and 5 events.

The Product Owner defines a vision to create or maintain a product to meet a customer need. They engage a development team that knows how to build this product in the best possible way. This development team needs to be small to keep communication simple and self-organized to achieve their goal. To ensure that they embody the values and principles outlined in the Agile software development manifesto, they engage a Scrum Master. The Scrum Master’s job is to empower the team by applying the Scrum framework, stimulating creative conversations, and giving the team what they need to perform.

They meet during the planning event, inspect the Product Backlog, and create a plan to achieve their goal. The Product Backlog is a list of things to do, ordered by the Product Owner. It may contain use cases, functional or non-functional requirements, user stories, bugs, etc.; anything that needs to be done on the product to satisfy the customer or the users. The iteration is called a Sprint. It has a maximum duration of 30 days. It is recommended to have Sprints of equal length to simplify data capture and analysis, and also to provide a consistent rhythm to the team. Maintaining a constant rhythm is important to foster continuous improvement. The Sprint also contains the other events. Once a Sprint is finished, another starts immediately.

After the Planning, the development team begins product development. Every day, they meet for a maximum of 15 minutes to plan the day’s work. This planning event is called the « Daily ».

At the end of the Sprint, the Product Owner presents to interested parties (clients, users, stakeholders), along with the rest of the team, what has been done during the Sprint according to their definition of « Done ». This is a list that defines the quality attributes applied to each item they worked on. During this conversation, the Product Owner hopes to gather ideas and feedback on what has been done to better satisfy their clients and users in the future. It is the perfect moment to review the next priorities, the planned deliveries, and highlight information that impacted the Product Backlog. This event is called the « Review ».

After this meeting, the Product Owner, development team, and Scrum Master discuss how to improve the next Sprint. That is, they can inspect various aspects of their work, whether it’s business, technology, their process and communication, or even refine their definition of « Done ». The result of this meeting is an item or a list of actions aimed at improving the group’s performance. These items are immediately considered during the next Planning event. This event is called the « Retrospective ».

Then the group starts a new Sprint with a Planning session.

Why adopt Agile concepts?

These concepts are very useful when the world we navigate keeps surprising us. It feels like we don’t know as much as we’d like to. Like we need to make more assumptions than we can imagine. This world is described as « complex ». It’s a world where the combination of the state of three categories (Requirements, Technology, People) makes it necessary to take small steps forward, then inspect our progress before moving on.

Adopting the Agile values and principles will help you remain sensitive to these three categories, and therefore, give your best for your clients considering that anything can change at any time.

3-5 Benefits

Benefits of being more agile with business.

  • Have a better impact on the customer. Develop what will meet their evolving needs.
  • Stay relevant in the market. That is, be competitive.
  • Increase your chances of success.

Benefits of being more agile with technology.

  • Support major directional changes with little disruption to production.
  • Reduce product maintenance costs.
  • Offer the benefits of the latest technologies.

Benefits of being more agile with people – collaboration.

  • Emerge with the most innovative solutions.
  • Keep process costs low.
  • Simplify development efforts.
  • Retain your workforce.
  • Attract talent.

What is the main difficulty with Scrum?

A phenomenon we often see is documented under the name Zombie Scrum. It is « doing » Scrum without really improving over time, without asking the real questions on how to become more efficient. It’s staying comfortable in the status quo.

The purpose of using Scrum is to frequently deliver functional product increments to clients and users. If people do not see how to solve the challenges to achieve this, the status quo sets in, and the rhythm of inspection and adaptation dissolves over time. You can do the events, assign the roles, and have the Scrum artifacts, without truly seeing the benefits.

This can happen for several reasons:

  • A team that doesn’t have the skills to produce a functional increment
  • Insensitivity from management, or workers who prefer the status quo
  • Reverting to old habits
  • etc.

These are mostly human challenges at the heart of Scrum implementation issues. This is why following a Coach or Mentor is very popular. Developing this sensitivity and resilience in all three categories is necessary to ensure your success. When properly adopted, Scrum helps us grow and thrive both individually and as a team.

How to adopt Agile transformation?

An Agile transformation can take many forms. The most effective way is to seek consensus from those who will be part of this transformation. This consensus is important because many decisions to follow will need to be made by the team itself. It’s a great way to get everyone on the same page and secure better engagement. Therefore, it’s necessary to identify who will be included in this transformation, bring them together, and start the conversation.

Once the desire to change things as a team is well-established, the goal is to develop a common foundation, a shared purpose, a common language, basic rules and practices, and start off on the right foot. Basic Scrum training (Professional Scrum Foundation) is an excellent starting point for a team. More advanced training can be considered for teams with experience in Scrum.

Many organizations have adopted Scrum without offering basic training to their employees. The responsibility of teaching the basics then falls on the Scrum Master, and it’s rare to see a beginner master the foundation to teach it. If they have a coach, the challenge will be to give the same message to everyone, and this will take longer since it’s case-by-case, one-on-one, or in small groups.

Once the transition starts, you need to continue your ongoing training and develop more specialized skills in different roles.

Generally, before moving on to a second wave of training, it’s helpful to practice Scrum as best as possible for a few Sprints. This way, you’ll face some challenges, and during your next training, you’ll be able to ask much better questions.

Where to start to become Agile?

  • For bilingual training in the Ottawa area, visit bourksoftware.com.
  • Read on agilemanifesto.org, it’s certainly a good starting point.
  • Scrum.org and scrumguides.org, to get started with Scrum.
  • The book « The Agile Samurai » could give you a good overview of how to see things differently.