As I transition to my new career, I find it difficult to explain to friends and family what I will be doing.
When I say, “Scrum,” their heads tilt sideways and offer a placating look of, “whatever you say, lady.”
I continue, “It’s project management, broken into small steps. Small teams work together to deliver results quickly. Then the experts and users can test it out as soon as possible.
“It’s starting off a project with the assumption that plans will NEED to change as we learn more. We work to improve continuously, to deliver better results with each focused sprint, so that the growth potential is unlimited.”
Now it sounds like a fairy tale, so my skeptics will shrug, and offer up raised eyebrows as if to say, “It must be nice.”
If it’s my brothers, I’ll use the analogy I first read about in Sutherland’s book about Agile. “‘Before you create a whole assembly line to create a new car, you give the engineers a chance to kick the tires.’ Before we are locked into one path, we can give people something to try out, discover potential mistakes while there is still time to fix them.”
If they are still engaged and following I’ll expand. An exercise in one of my training sessions used an example that stuck with me.
You see, there are simple problems, and those have simple solutions. I am thirsty so I will get some water. Done.
Then there are complicated problems: I need water, but I’m hiking in a desert, and the nearest drinking water is miles away. It will require some skills, but the solution is fairly logical. Those kinds of problems have straightforward solutions and the strategies should reflect that.
But what about following a storm?
The shelves are empty at the grocery stores, tap water is not safe, and the normal options are not available. This will require learning knowledge I don’t yet have. I’ll have to work with others to figure out a way to find a solution, and it may take multiple attempts before we learn what works. Once we do, we can hopefully use that skill to bring that water to more people in need. This is a complex problem, with many unknowns, constantly changing demands, and requiring a team with different kinds of talents to succeed.
And then you have chaos, when the hurricane passes, roads are blocked, communication is down, emergencies appear everywhere, and the situation changes constantly.
In both the complex and chaos scenarios, Scrum could help coordinate strategy and deliver results quicker when the pressure is on. It’s about bringing together people with different skills, using real-time information to adapt and improve.
That is what being Agile is all about. Agile is a philosophy that guides decision-making so that complex problems can be prioritized and efforts can deliver maximum results.
It’s about having a long-term goal that promotes sustainable progress, so that benefits continue long after the project deadline has passed.
And then they will reference a comedy show called Silicon Valley, “I think I heard something like that with technology companies. So you will be working with computers?”
And for now, I’ll nod and say, “possibly.”
That Scrum can be used as a strategy for unlimited complex problems is a bit more than I can communicate in one sitting.
Credits:
- Sutherland, Jeff. Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time.
- Schibler, Jim, leading a lesson in July 2022 for the Job Hackers Agile MBA program, designed by Larry Apke.
- Special thanks to the ASVPM Lean Coffee chat September 15, 2022, where various leaders shared their insights with me on the best way to describe Scrum. I hope I have presented their ideas in a way that shows how much I value their wisdom.
Hi i am kavin, its my first occasion to commenting anywhere, when i read this paragraph i thought
i could also make comment due to this sensible article.
The topic of this article is really interesting and important from Agile adoption acceleration standpoint.
Considering the newness of Agile, it’s critical to share the meaning of Agile to your family and friends as Agile is not only applicable to IT (information technology) but EVERYWHERE..literally EVERYWHERE.
Ex. If we plan to move from one house to other, we can move the household items iteratively. Agile is very well applicable there i.e. we can pack Kitchen first..then bedroom…then living room, then kids room and then may be any other room.. We can move them to truck iteratively and then to the new house in 2-3 rounds. We can start unpacking the things one by one from Kitchen, bedroom, living room and kids room etc..etc… Like in every sprint, we can pack and unpack one room’s items and complete the moving iteratively. The value of this iterative approach is that we can finish moving of items room by room rather than waiting on moving all the rooms together which is more productive and efficient.
In this article, the analogy of water has been explained very creatively. This explains how we can differentiate using Agile Vs Waterfall based on the complexity of problems.
The ONLY thing that I would recommend would be staying away from using the term “Project” (as indicated in below statement) and using the term “Product” more frequently as Agile is meant to be to deliver a product iteratively. Waterfall is applicable to project implementation.
“It’s project management, broken into small steps. Small teams work together to deliver results quickly. Then the experts and users can test it out as soon as possible
Project management includes more emphasis on sequential delivery, implementation dates, milestones, milestones owners, fixed requirements, budget, documentation etc..etc..(which is applicable to Waterfall).
On the other side, Product management would put emphasis on iterative delivery, self organization, cross functionality, frequent customer satisfaction, changes in the requirements etc.. etc..(which is applicable to Agile).
Overall it was enlightening experience to read this great topic and recommend to discuss with friends and family to enhance the spreading of Agile concepts understanding in an informal way. Thank you very much Jodi to shed light on such a unique topic.
Thank you, Jodi.
You reminded me of the Cynefin framework in your examples of a simple, complex, complicated, and chaos scenario and how an Agile approach can help for decision making and managing solutions for each different situation. Like many in our profession, I also find it difficult to be able to accurately describe Agile and the Scrum Framework in simple terms so that anyone can understand it. Here is an article that I must share with you. It was pointed out to me recently from a fellow volunteer on our SVPM Scrum Team internal slack channel regarding this subject. It’s titled “How to explain Agile and Scrum to your grandpa in 5 minutes”. It was written by Natalia Babaeva and published in “The Startup” back on July 5, 2018. – https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-explain-agile-and-scrum-to-your-grandpa-in-5-mins-and-to-better-understand-both-yourself-3792748fa085
( For more information regarding Cynefin, see our September 2022 Meetup https://svprojectmanagement.com/asvpm-meetups-and-community-events )
Thank you, Joid, for your nice points.
Agile has become a buzzword, and at times like a commodity for a few project managers (PMs)! We all have heard that “Scrum is easy to learn and hard to master it”! Yet again, many PMs think of Scrum when asked about Agile! Scrum is one of many Agile frameworks.
I was asked to explain Agile to my grandpa (or a five-year-old) and I’m thinking about how I can explain a way of life to anyone in simple-few-sentences! In a nutshell, even though it takes time to exercise, Agile is a set of collaborative interactions (or “collective behavior”) of a group of people using proactive rules of “respect”, “commit to, and perform”, “Check”, “learn”, and “adapt” — “iteratively”, to evolve at work and in life. Frankly, each of the words may require more to think and write about. My grandpa would understand “respect” and my five-year-old niece may ask for clarification!
Being Agile – I am still learning, and I will keep learning and adapting, and helping others is my evolving life journey.