Additional Value from the Scrum course

In the prior post, I spoke of a simple way of measuring the value of a scrum course. And the real subtext was: You must measure velocity (productivity) and you must increase velocity dramatically. (And, oh, by the way, a course might help you do that.)

But aside from velocity, does the CSM course provide other values?

I think yes.

So, what might they be? I would be very interested to hear how you would put this (or these).

X has already mentioned that it bring a common terminology. This is very helpful. In many ways, and to many different people.

I have heard a senior manager say: "If they only thing I get is greater visibility into where we are, that's plenty. I don't have to have anything else get better." And while the Scrum course won't guarantee that, one of the main benefits of Scrum is that, if you do it right, everyone gets greater visibility. [Now, we are concerned that some managers will meddle more, in a hurtful way, if they get greater visibility, but almost always the meddling goes down some, at least.]

People work less in isolation. I think this is a big improvement. It is a more humane way of working, in this way. Less lonely.

Teams are held accountable for something important, rather than an individual being held accountable for something fairly unimportant and outside his/her control. This is, in general, a big improvement. There are issues, and there are ways that Scrum still holds (appropriately, I think) individuals accountable, so this needs further discussion, but in general, a clear improvement.

More fun. Scrum says that the team must be having fun (well, mostly fun) or its not being done right. And, if it is done with "right" limits, it is always more fun (or so I have found). To me, this is a value on its own.

More focus on impediments. The PMI folks might argue that we always were working impediments, and of course in some sense this is true. But Scrum brings a lot more rigor and effective action and focus on the top impediment, one at a time. Everyone can contribute, the team can identify and prioritize them and devise a plan to remove each one. Even if we don't measure velocity, this is a big value add in many ways (eg, more satisfying and less painful way to work).

So, that's a start. Hardly a complete list of the value. But a start.
You could say that these start to explain how Scrum "magically" leads to greater velocity and a higher delivery of Business Value.

CSM course + Workshop in Ottawa March 1-4

Joe Little will be leading a Certified ScrumMaster course (2 days), followed by an optional workshop (2 days). In Ottawa, Mar 1-4.

Here are the details: http://leanagiletraining.com/LittleOttawa/LittleOttawaCourse.html

The workshop is good for any team that needs a boost. Either at the beginning, or in the middle.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

The CSM Exam

As you may know, the Scrum Alliance is implementing a CSM Exam on Oct 1. See scrumalliance.org for details.

This causes us to make a few basic statements.

First, our real purpose is not certification and all that alphabet soup. It might be helpful, it might not. But the real purpose is improving people's lives. The customers, the workers (which includes the managers), and the stakeholders (eg, the shareholders, those widows and orphans).

Second, we have to comment that in some ways, the ScrumMaster title is not fortuitous. It implies, to some, that a CSM is a "master" of something, possibly Scrum. Almost any intelligent person, with a modicum of investigation, sees that that is not true. But some people want to get wrapped around that axle.

Third, we think the CSM Course is a very good course. And, today, the CSM title means you have taken that course. I think taking the course should be viewed as a necessary but not sufficient condition to becoming a ScrumMaster, and probably even to doing Scrum. Other conditions must be met also.

Ok, now on to the Exam itself.

First, putting together a good Exam is very hard. The Scrum Alliance has my sympathies. Even if the initial version is not good enough (it might not be).

Second, the Exam has some practical benefits. It will cause some people to read more. Good, mostly. (Partly bad, because Scrum is more about action than mere knowledge in the head.) It will cause some people to pay attention in class more. Good, mostly. (Partly bad, since they may be paying attention to things to pass a test, and not to the broader meaning and the interconnections and how to make it work in real life.)

Third, the Exam creates a relatively quick feedback loop. Scrum is all about fast feedback. The Exam is not perfect feedback, but better than none.

The Exam is partly bad also. It puts more emphasize on Explicit knowledge, and implies less importance for Tacit knowledge. Certainly the Tacit knowledge about Scrum is very important; I think more important than the Explicit knowledge.

Metaphorically, the Exam suggests that documentation (knowledge unused) is an important measure of progress. But Agile and Scrum say the true measure of progress is working product. In this situation, putting Scrum into practice. In the case of the test, it is ok to test Explicit knowledge, but we need to say that we do not agree with the metaphor. The more important test is: Can you really do it?

In the real world, potential employees and hiring managers want to see "can this person do this thing well". It is reasonable, as I said, to view having a CSM as a necessary condition to becoming a ScrumMaster and probably even to doing Scrum (or a CSPO for Business types), but it is not sufficient. Only in action can you prove that you can do it.

So, I think the CSM Exam is a small positive (despite its drawbacks). We should not get too distracted by it from the main goal. Let's make people's lives better. We need that just about now.

CSM Course, Durham, May 6-7. And May 8th

We are looking forward to a good class in Durham, NC. Certified ScrumMaster Class.

We hope that people will get enough out of it to double their velocity. (We know there is enough there to do that, but there are several other issues.) The course will address BV Engineering, Agile Estimating & Planning, and other issues.

On the third day (sign-up separately), we will have a Team Start-up session. All are welcome at this May 8th session. This day will get more practical about the issues in starting up a team. All the different kinds of issues.

See LeanAgileTraining.com or contact Julia.Hill@leanagiletraining.com.

Reading List CSM Sutherland/Little course

We recently led a course in Atlanta.

Suggested reading included the following:







The New New Product Development Game by Takeuchi and Nonaka. hbr.com

The Contradictions That Drive Toyota's Success by Takeuchi. hbr.com

The Concept of "Ba" by Nonaka and Konno.

Comment: For the books, I think it is more colorful and more useful to provide you with a picture of the book and access to Amazon's info about the book. Hope this is not otherwise a problem; I am slightly concerned that it may appear too commercial.

Suggested Resources for CSM Course NYC Feb 28-29

Here are some of the resources we mentioned in the course.

First, a suggestion and two cautions.
Suggestion: Always tightly link thinking and action.
Caution: "Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart." W. Shakespeare
Caution 2: "Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh." Ecclesiastes 12:12

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition) by Frederick P. Brooks. It includes the famous essay on No Silver Bullet.

The New New Product Development Game by Takeuchi and Nonaka. Let me ask you to go to www.hbr.com and look it up. It's a Harvard Business Review article. It costs $6 (softcopy). If you need to see it before you buy it, contact me.

Rolling out Agile in a Large Enterprise by Gabrielle Benefield. This is about Yahoo. Many good suggestions.

Software by Numbers: Low-Risk, High-Return Development by Mark Denne and Jane Cleland-Huang. This book explains what you should go to Minimum Marketable Feature sets to get incremental funding. Or...it pays to go Agile.

User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development (The Addison-Wesley Signature Series) by Mike Cohn. Key stuff.

Agile Estimating and Planning (Robert C. Martin Series) by Mike Cohn. Again, key stuff.

Leading with the Heart: Coach K's Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business, and Life by Mike Krzyzewski and Donald T. Phillips. I live the Duke Blue Devil basketball team. Not surprisingly, I find basketball an apt metaphor for a software development team. Coach K gives a lot of great advice about building a winning team.

The Concept of "Ba" by Nonaka and Konno. This article gives an introduction to this subject.

***
There are many other great resources. This is a start. You may also want to look at earlier posts of this sort. Start here.

Lean-Agile Courses Available

Certified ScrumMaster course. Winston-Salem, NC. Jan 16-17, 2008

Leader: Mike Vizdos. See: Vizdos CSM Course

Implementing Lean Software Development - Practitioner's course. Charlotte, NC. Jan 28-29, 2008

Leaders: Mary & Tom Poppendieck. See: Lean Software Development course

Certified ScrumMaster course. New York, NY. Feb 28-29, 2008.

Leader: Jeff Sutherland. See: Jeff Sutherland Certified ScrumMaster training

Suggested Resources for attendees at the Jim York Certified ScrumMaster course on Dec 4-5

Here are some suggested resources that came out of a Certified ScrumMaster course that Jim York and I just led.

Books

On the Web

http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/

http://www.planningpoker.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scrumdevelopment/ -- The Scrum-Dev yahoo discussion group. Enter with salt.

Articles

New New Product Development Game by Takeuchi and Nonaka. (See http://www.hbr.com/) This is the article that directly led to Scrum (along with other sources). It also gave Scrum its name.


Key Words

Kaikaku - a rapid or radical change event (such as the initial implementation of Scrum)

Kaizen - continuous improvement (also used to refer to continuous improvement actions)

"Go to the Gemba" - Gemba in Japanese means "actual place" or the place where truth is. Similarities to the Godfather phrase "Go to the mattresses". With "go to the Gemba" we are typically asking a manager to go visit the Agile Team Room.

Genchi Genbutsu - Japanese for "Go and see for yourself". More roughly translated as "don't manage from behind a desk". In Agile, we might say, "Come to the demo and see for yourself" to a stakeholder. Or, to a manager "if you want to really know how the project is going, come to the Daily Standup or come to an Iteration Review." Closely related to "go to the Gemba" and Gemba Attitude. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genchi_Genbutsu

The ScrumMaster role:
"...whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the
mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own
image, and the very age and body of the time his form and
pressure." Hamlet. (That's a lot of what a ScrumMaster does.)

Pictures

Communications Nodes PDF. See http://agileconsortium.pbwiki.com/Presentations
The idea here is to show why we need small teams.

See also earlier posts tagged Recommended Reading.

* * *

Certified ScrumMaster course in Charlotte Dec 4-5

Jim York will lead a CSM course in Charlotte on Dec 4-5. See here for details:
http://wiki.kittyhawkconsulting.com/Jim+York+CSM+Course+in+Charlotte

Or contact me.

Reading List for CSM Course Nov 5-6

The following are some suggested readings for people in this course. Others may enjoy also.

Again, as always, I recommend that you learn as fast as you can. And that you mix learning with action. To know and not to do is not to know. Thus, your real knowledge becomes known in how well you can act. Then you see your...opportunities for improvement, and are ready to learn some more, and then to act again. So, read what you will learn from and what you need to learn now. These needs will differ for each person.

For some of these books and more, see http://www.kittyhawkconsulting.com/id15.html In this case, I have made the entries graphical, which some may enjoy. Click on an entry, and you will go to Amazon.com, where you can read more about the book.





And three articles:
The New New Product Development Game by Taeuchi and Nonaka. Where the Scrum name came from.

The Knowledge-Creating Company by Nonaka. This article is a very short version of their book of the same name.

The Concept of Ba by Nonaka and Konno. In Scrum, the team room is the "Ba" (the place or context in which knowledge is created). So, this will help you understand what kinds of things should be going on in the Team Room or other Ba's.

See also this earlier post titled Prioritized Reading List.

Scrum and Agile are simple. At the same time, all the different reasons you follow these Scrum practices are many. And people are...involved. So, there is always more to learn.

Proposed Reading List

For the CSM Class in NYC on Sept 5-6.

A teacher recently told me this: “To know and not to do is not to know.” And we know from many teachers that we learn best by thinking a bit and then practicing some, and then thinking some more and practicing more. This is embedded, as one example, in the Deming Cycle.

So, I have already suggested that the best way to learn for you, right now, might be to practice for a while. A short while.

Next, one needs to say that each of us is different. So, if we want our learning to be effective, we need to consider our individual needs and abilities. Some of you think in concepts, some in pictures, some with stories, etc., etc. Some of you understand (or have no interest in) User Stories, for example. Others have pressing needs to understand engineering practices.

Also, now that you have been infected with the Agile virus, you can read almost any book from an Agile viewpoint. War and Peace by Tolstoy is one of my personal favorites. This might be the best way for you.

Now, after all these explanations (and you might say, excuses), here are some suggested readings.

I have these books on my website, with direct links to Amazon, so you might want to go there: http://www.kittyhawkconsulting.com/id15.html

User Stories Applied by Mike Cohn. Great book on how to write and use User Stories. And once you feel you get the ideas yourself, go to his site (www.mountaingoatsoftware.com) and download some of the presentations on this subject. To use for your discussions with associates.

Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn. Here he discusses planning poker, and lots of other subjects around Release Planning and Iteration Planning. Again, he has very useful presentations on this subject as well.

The New New Product Development Game by Takeuchi and Nonaka. Article. This is where Scrum started. To me, it is essential that we view our selves as creating new products. Passing this one around starts to get light bulbs turning on.

Extreme Programming Explained (2^nd Edition) by Kent Beck and Cynthia Andres. Kent Beck, Ron Jeffries and Ward Cunningham are the three guys most responsible for extreme programming. Kent is an excellent writer, and his discussion of values, principles and practices is wonderful. (Be aware that some people prefer the 1^st edition (2000), but that is now hard to find.)

The Knowledge-Creating Company by Nonaka. This is a HBR article that summarizes many of the key concepts in the book (of the same name) by Takeuchi and Nonaka.

The Concept of Ba by Nonaka. This is an article that summarizes some of the key concepts that are discussed in the Hitosubashi on Knowledge Management book, edited by Takeuchi and Nonaka.

Fearless Change by Manns and Rising. This book is about introducing a new idea into any “group” (such as your company). These ladies are actually Agilists, but the book is about introducing any idea (not specifically Agile). The book presents a little theory and lots of patterns on how to influence various people so that Scrum/Agile/Lean will succeed in your group. The majority of these patterns you know, but the reminders, tips and tricks are very valuable. Arguably, this is the most important book for you right now.

The Power of a Positive No by William Ury. Bill co-wrote Getting To Yes. This book, about saying no sometimes, is essential. Almost everyone in Agile that I know is not practicing sustainable work because they can’t say “no” enough. Frankly (although Bill is a friend) the title is a little hokey to me, and the basic idea seems obvious (you have to say “no” before any “yes” can have meaning). Again, in theory there is no difference between theory and practice…in practice, there is. As you read the book, I think you will learn useful ways to say "no" almost as often as you should. Priorities.

Working with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers. This book has lots of ideas about how to deal with legacy systems. Michael is an excellent Agile Coach (a bit more in the XP flavor).

Lean Thinking by Womack and Jones. The first chapter of this book is an excellent introduction to Lean. Some of you will be amused to learn that Ohno, whom many credit with inventing Lean, said that he learned it all from Henry Ford’s book Today and Tomorrow.

Implementing Lean Software Development by Mary and Tom Poppendieck. Excellent source for taking Lean ideas and applying them to software development. This is their second book. Not a bad book for you to read first, in fact.

Godspeed on your journey.

Jeff Sutherland in Charlotte July 11-12

Jeff Sutherland will teach a Certified ScrumMaster course in Charlotte on July 11-12.

See Jeff's blog for some information. See here for specific information. And see here to register.

Jeff includes a lot of ideas associated with XP and Lean in his practice of Scrum. (And equally, Kent Beck and the Poppendiecks have been influenced by Jeff Sutherland, in my opinion.)