7 practices for the effective implementation of Scrum

by Peter Beck // In this text you learn about: Why Scrum provides the best principles for effective change management // How Scrum challenges the organization // The most important success factors for implementing Scrum //

There is a huge difference between knowing things and being able to do them. You may understand Scrum quite well and have perhaps recently finished your first Scrum project successfully. Now you ask yourself, “How should I implement Scrum in my organization?”

Every organization is different and you never will find a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution. You need to adapt your Scrum implementation approach to the specific needs of your organization. Fortunately, there is now a huge body of knowledge about and experience with Scrum implementations, and it looks like some practices are more essential than others in order to have the implementations be effective and successful.

The 7 practices for an effective Scrum implementation will still not give you the silver bullet. Some of these are more important for your organization than others. Practices specific to and important for your organization might be missing. But this should give you a jumpstart for the first Scrum principle: Deliver early and regularly. Know how to inspect and adapt the right approach. Figure out which of these practices are useful and give value to your organization. You will skip some of the principles while expanding on others, or create more effective ones.

Follow the principles

The best fundament on which to develop Scrum is Scrum itself. All the measures you need to carry out Scrum in your organization should follow the Scrum principles:

• Deliver early and regularly
• Inspect and adapt
• Have empowered, cross-functional teams
• Be transparent and open
• Be time-boxed

Scrum is designed to help complex systems develop. Organizations are complex, and implementing Scrum in traditional organizations is even more complex. Planning and executing organizational change by using the Scrum framework guarantees that you continuously deliver. You gain trust in your organization because the new approach shows results. Furthermore, you send the right signals to your organization; ‘We trust and use the new approach and can see it is working.’

Start with an urgent and very important project

We do not Scrum just because of Scrum. We do Scrum in order to deliver a better product in a more efficient way. Scrum should help us reach project goals in less time and with lesser costs. The question is not what we can do for Scrum, but what can Scrum do for us. What is lacking, where does failure hurt most, where is the value we gain for the organization at its highest? These are the questions you should ask when looking for a project on which to apply Scrum.

The Scrum implementation and the project will benefit from each other. If the project is important enough, it will be much easier to make necessary organizational changes possible. It is the project that gains in value, not the new approach.

You may now be asking about risks. What if we fail? Sure, every project has risks and to ignore them is dangerous. But Scrum is helpful in this respect. It will continuously help you make risks visible. You will surely figure out soon enough whether your project will fail, and this will not affect your trust in Scrum. It will be apparent if the project goal is not within timely reach or within the budget. The basic truth is sometimes hard. Simply take care that nobody misinterprets this fact and tries to use Scrum as a scapegoat.

Have the right people – get the pioneers

It is not a secret that having the right people on board is a major success factor for any project. Especially in the case of your first Scrum projects, you should take care to have Agile pioneers on board who are:

• Willing to un-learn old habits
• Willing to learn and use new techniques
• Willing to break rules
• Enthusiastic about Scrum and Agile
• 100% dedicated to the team

Of course your chosen team member needs to have the best domain knowledge possible. This includes technical as well as business know-how. However, most of this knowledge is useless for complex projects – otherwise they would not be complex. So do not overrate them.

Your team has to go through areas which have never been explored before. Plus the fact that they are now in the spotlight. Will Scrum and your team lose or win? You have to play on many layers at once. There are difficulties inherent in your project and hidden forces working against your new approach. Do not play this game without the best.

A very good approach used to finding the best is to let them find you and your project. Simply advertise the new approach and state that you are looking for pioneers. Run a 4-hour Scrum introduction workshop, for example, making sure everyone in the organization is free to join in. Ask at the end: Who would like to start tomorrow with this approach? You will soon have your candidates.

When your first Scrum project is over your pioneers are still needed. They should transfer their knowledge to the rest of the organization. Maybe some of them joined a Scrum implementation or improvement Team with the intention of rolling out Scum in the whole organization or carrying out difficult organizational changes. Others will join the next new Scrum teams.

Have a Sponsor

The success of every Scrum implementation will finally find its master in its Sponsor. The Sponsor is someone who is strongly connected with the organization, has huge decicion-making power and influences the leading strategy. Most often this is the CEO or CTO, or someone who is very close.

Some organizations may not start with such a powerful sponsor. However, Scrum will challenge the C-Level very soon after the first Scrum Teams have gotten started. In case you are not in a powerful position, try to find a good person for this and prepare him to sponsor the Scrum implementation.

This Sponsor is responsible for prioritizing and deciding on necessary improvements and difficult changes. It is good practice to make this Sponsor the Product Owner of a Scrum implementation or improvement Team. This team commits itself to carrying out the changes in the organization with the full support of the sponsor, following the Scrum framework. Together with the sponsor, this team creates a strategy for the Scrum implementation in the organization. A Scrum implementation and improvement architecture, tailored to the needs of the organization, should be created. The following picture reduces such a structure to a single picture. But remember: every organization is different. Therefore, every organization needs its own specific set-up. And do not forget to inspect and adapt your approach.

Involve the middle management

Typically, the largest resistance to Scrum comes from middle management. Most often, this group fears loss the most, and they are right, because Scrum tends to flatten the hierarchy. People in middle management end up having to change their duties, responsibilities and management practices radically.

By involving this group in the process of becoming a highly efficient Scrum organization, you can turn resistance into support. But again, ask yourself who is involved in the process and who needs to get out of the way. Flattening the hierarchy does not necessarily mean reducing the head count, but it is true that some people will leave the organization and others will come.

Prepare your organization, as every change is an opportunity in itself, even for those leaving the organization.

Train the people and offer support

We know it from sports. Without training we should not go to the match. The same is true for this new game, Scrum. We need to train muscles and reflexes which have seldom or never been used before. However, other muscles are already well developed and hinder us in acting according to the new game rules.

Explain the new rules to people before they start implementing Scrum. Expand on best practices so that the right muscles and reflexes are ready for the first Sprint. It is important that every stakeholder is at least familiar with the Scrum rules. Otherwise you can be sure that someone will break the rules. However, specialist training for the specific roles is less important and can be offered later.

In Scrum we deliver early. After a brief training we should be ready to start. But many things are still unclear and the real big questions will appear during the first Sprints. You should offer your teams support and help. Guidance by an experienced Scrum practitioner or coach increases the confidence necessary to start with Scrum, and lets the team focus on the real challenge: the project.

Yes – you know it already: every organization is different. Every organization needs a specific training plan. And yes: you have to adapt this plan, too. But you can find an example here:

Right marketing

Scrum helps you create great products. Good products are the best advertisement you can have. But if your potential customers do not understand that you have a good product, no one will buy anything. Therefore, you need good marketing, too.

The same logic applies to your Scrum implementation. Being successful is the best advertisement. But you also need to think about how to sell you success within the organization. You need to overcome resistance and fear, but not only through arguments. You also need to think about how to present and place your arguments at the right time, using the right language, and to the right people.

Transparency and openness do not mean that you should tell everyone everything indiscriminately. Think about who ‘consumes’ your message. Think about what his comfort zone is and how you can challenge him without creating a blockade.

Here is a simple technique, borrowed from marketing professionals, for turning impediments into accepted solutions:

1. Find the specific situation in which the impediment was observed (nobody can deny the fact)
2. Make an interpretation (this means that you could be wrong, but fact is fact)
3. Offer solutions A or B (the magic trick is that you can either buy A or B, but not nothing)