Contrary to popular belief, Scrum is not an IT project management method. It's a team game based on empiricism. The Scrum framework maximises the success of organisations in the face of their challenges: Covid, economic competition, carbon neutrality, or the rehumanisation of the workspace...
It is therefore time to clear up this misunderstanding.
Scrum, a team game rather than a method
A method is a formal procedure. It takes standardised elements and processes them in clear steps to obtain the expected deliverable. The chocolate cake recipe illustrates this perfectly. If you don't have chocolate, it doesn't work.
Covid, loss of meaning at work, economic competition, digital transformation, environmental, energy and security issues - our organisations are facing more and more unforeseen events! To put it another way, there's no more chocolate, and results can't be predicted.
Self-management and empiricism towards common goals
Derived from rugby, Scrum means scrum. What Scrum and rugby have in common is that they have rules and self-managed teams that use empiricism to achieve their objectives. Scrum and rugby also share the fact that they operate in complex, unpredictable environments. Anything can happen on the pitch, and no magic method guarantees victory.
Rugby and Scrum provide a framework allowing continuous improvement collaborative play.
Scrum is defined in a 13-page document, the Scrum Guide. On the front cover is a clue to its content: "The rules of the game". Because, yes, Scrum is a team game.
A game that allows teams to tackle all kinds of complex issues, such as the creation and evolution of vehicles, digital products, consumer electronics, marketing campaigns, human organisations, ecological models or artificial intelligence models.
The French market rediscovers Scrum
In France, with Scrum, we're mostly at the simulation stage. It's a bit like learning to surf. You rehearse the moves, in the dry, on the beach. It's an important stage, but it's not surfing. Taken individually, employees and managers want the real thing!
When we helped a well-known financial institution to achieve its business objectives, it became clear that the culture in place was a real brake on its success: fear of blame, taboo emotions, loss of meaning at work, lack of trust and micromanagement were considered normal. These were toxic obstacles for the organisation, which the collective awareness helped to identify and remove.
Collectively, our habits are hard-wired. For the most part, we find that the traditional approaches of the last century are still with us, dressed up in trendy Agile-sounding terms: squad, daily, or MVP.
Scrum, like surfing or rugby, requires us to work on our values: courage, focus, commitment, respect and openness. They enable us to deliver in the short term, learn from the market... and reduce the amount of unnecessary work.
The world is speeding up, and many organisations are now up against the wall.
Having trained nearly 2,000 people in Europe, and supported dozens of organisations, we can clearly hear that a new melody is emerging in French organisations. The status quo is cracking. People are speaking out. Why not give it a try?
For what types of issues?
Hardware, special forces commandos, marketing, digital, industry, employee engagement, environmental footprint, medical research, finance, data, defence... all these subjects are complex. And yet Scrum manages them.
Some organisations have understood this and are improving their results in areas that are important to them:
- accelerated time to market (TTM);
- reduced product ownership costs;
- rehumanising the workspace;
- increased customer satisfaction;
- reduction in technical debt;
- improving employer appeal.
When Saab AB delivers a new and improved version of its Gripen fighter jet every three weeks, or Tesla is able to improve its models in production more than twenty times a week. Scrum is not far off.
Scrum's results can be measured in terms of business and collaborative impact.
Rediscover Scrum with those who practice it
Scrum is best understood when you experience it for yourself. Collaboration is like being in love - until it happens to you, you can't imagine what it's like.
The training courses presented on the official Scrum.org website are experiential. Together, participants explore psychological safety, trust, self-management and empiricism. From a sum of individuals, they forge teams.
Recognized field experts
Scrum.org training courses are facilitated by Professional Scrum Trainers (PSTs), a community of 360 professionals around the world whose field experience has been recognised by Scrum.org. They have the highest certifications: PSM III and PSPO III. Their embodiment of Scrum's values and their ability to help teams grow mean that they have been individually invited to join this community of international experts in advancing Agility.
Scrum.org training courses are created and updated by Ken Schwaber, co-creator of Scrum, and the PST community. Participants benefit from the latest version of international advances in the field. The content is state-of-the-art.
It's common in organisations for everyone to have their own version of Agile. While having one's own local dialect is charming, it is also largely unproductive for addressing the issues together. Without a common vocabulary, we can't understand each other.
Scrum.org certifications help build this common understanding around official Agile texts such as the Scrum Guide. This shared understanding enables us to address our organisational challenges, as well as benefiting from the experience of millions of teams around the world to accelerate our business.
Scrum on!
