Scrum
Jeff Sutherland, Ph.D.
17 min
7 Key Points
4.8 RateWhat's inside?
Discover the secrets of efficient project management with Scrum, a method that can double your productivity in half the time.
You'll learn
1. What's Scrum all about?2. Making Scrum work for you3. Boosting your productivity game4. Teamwork makes the dream work5. Handling big projects with Scrum6. Quick and effective change management.Key points
01Scrum makes projects profitable by breaking them into manageable tasks
Let's talk about Scrum. No, not the rugby play, but a project management method that's all about teamwork, making steady progress, and being flexible to reach your goals. It's a proven way to get things done faster and more efficiently, which means more money in your pocket. To get a handle on Scrum, let's compare it to the old-school Waterfall method. Waterfall is like a one-way street. You finish one phase of a project before you can start the next. It's a straight line from start to finish. But if something goes wrong or changes, it can throw a wrench in the whole process. And if the project doesn't pan out as expected, you've wasted a lot of time and money. Scrum, on the other hand, is more like a bustling city grid. You break the project down into smaller tasks that different team members can work on at the same time. It's a dynamic process that allows for feedback and adjustments along the way. This reduces the risk of failure and waste. Plus, Scrum encourages everyone to communicate and collaborate, which leads to better problem-solving and decision-making. But Scrum isn't just for the office. Its principles can be applied to all sorts of complex problems in society. But for now, let's focus on how it can boost productivity and profitability at work. One of the key points in Scrum is the importance of accurate forecasting and effective teamwork to avoid wasting resources. It's common for teams to struggle with estimating how much time and effort a project will take. Scrum offers strategies to tackle these challenges. By using Scrum, teams can work smarter, not harder, and reach their goals faster and more efficiently. The idea of Scrum actually comes from rugby, a game invented in the 19th century by William Webb Ellis. Just like in a rugby match, where the team works together to move the ball down the field, Scrum encourages teams to collaborate and work towards a common goal. It's a reminder that teamwork and collective effort are key to success.
02Scrum helps teams work efficiently on complex projects
In "Scrum: The art of doing twice the work in half the time," Jeff Sutherland uses his fighter pilot background to explain the effectiveness of the Scrum method. He often found himself in dangerous situations as a pilot, which taught him a four-step survival process: observe, orient, decide, and act. Let's break it down: • Observe: This is all about keeping a sharp eye on your surroundings and spotting potential dangers and opportunities. • Orient: This step is about figuring out where you stand in relation to your environment and the threats and opportunities you've spotted. • Decide: Based on what you've observed and your orientation, you choose the best course of action. • Act: Finally, you put your decision into action. The Scrum method uses these same principles in managing projects. To make this clearer, Sutherland brings in the Japanese martial arts concept of Shu Ha Ri, which outlines different levels of mastery: • Shu: This is the first stage where you learn the rules and keep repeating them until they become second nature. It's a stage of strict rule-following with little room for creativity or deviation. • Ha: In this stage, you start to grasp the principles behind the rules. This understanding allows for some innovation and deviation from the rules, but it's still limited. • Ri: This is the mastery stage. At this point, you understand the principles so well that you can throw out the rules and innovate freely. Scrum is a journey towards the Ri stage. It's about constantly improving and innovating to reach a state where work flows smoothly. The Scrum method has become widely accepted because it helps keep projects from running late or going over budget. This is a big step up from the previously popular Waterfall method, which is now less commonly used. In today's cutthroat world, sticking to old ways of working can lead to irrelevance. On the flip side, teams that use the Scrum method can constantly improve their productivity and replicate their successes, leading to higher quality work. Interestingly, the concept of Shu Ha Ri was first introduced in the martial arts world in the 1930s by Kenji Tomiki, a student of Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo. The concept is often represented by the Japanese characters “Shu Ha Ri,” but it can also be represented by other character combinations, such as “Ku Shu Ren” or “Shu Shin Ko.”
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03Teamwork is key in Scrum for innovative and high-quality results
04Scrum values time and rhythm for structured and stress-free work
05Scrum discourages multitasking for better focus and productivity
06To start with Scrum, understand its principles, define roles, get trained, and start small
07Conclusion
About Jeff Sutherland, Ph.D.
Jeff Sutherland, Ph.D., is a software engineer and entrepreneur, best known as the co-creator of the Scrum software development methodology. He has worked in multiple companies as a manager or consultant and has written extensively on organizational management and software development.
