What is scrum?
After several articles, we are finally going to talk about scrum. We said before that if the core value of agile is the root of the tree, the 12 principles of agile are the branches of the tree. Today we are talking about scrum. The fruit that bears.
In today's fast-paced and highly competitive commercial new product development arena, speed and flexibility are essential. Companies are increasingly realizing that the old, sequential method simply cannot complete the development of new products. On the contrary, Japanese and American companies are using a holistic approach-just like rugby, when the ball moves on the court as a whole, the ball is passed through the team.
This holistic approach has six characteristics: built-in instability, self-organizing project teams, overlapping development stages, "multiple learning", subtle control and organizational transfer of learning. The six pieces are assembled like a puzzle, forming a fast and flexible new product development process. Equally important, the new method can act as a change agent: it is a tool for introducing creative, market-driven ideas and processes into old, rigid organizations.
---The New New Product Development Game [New New Product Development Game] IDCF community translation version
The content quoted above comes from the article "New Product Development Game" published by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka in Harvard Business Review in 1986. One of the founders of scrum, Jeff Sutherland (杰Sutherland) used the method described in this article in the project in 1993, and subsequently co-invented and perfected the scrum framework with Ken Schwaber, the other founder of scrum. Speaking of the two founders, they are both co-drafters of the Agile Manifesto, and they have a rich experience in their careers. From their previous experience, you may not even think that they will become the promoters of new software development models.
Jeff Sutherland
's first job was actually a US Air Force fighter pilot. He was also awarded the title of "High Aspiration" in 1967 and completed 100 combat missions over northern Vietnam. Later in his service, he went to Stanford University to get a master's degree in statistics, and taught mathematical statistics and probability at the U.S. Air Force Academy. After the end of his 11-year military career, he became a faculty member of the Colorado School of Medicine and received his doctorate. Under the sponsorship of Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling, he participated in the establishment of the Vitamin and Cancer Research Center as an Assistant Professor of Radiology, Biology and Preventive Medicine, and served as the principal researcher of the National Cancer Center for eight years. Responsible for data statistics and IT programs and research for all cancer patients in Colorado, integrating national registration, clinical trials, epidemiological research, and supercomputer mathematical models of cancer. In 1983, he joined a company operating 150 banks throughout North America, where he held the position of Vice President of Advanced Systems and General Manager of the ATM Business Unit. Since then, Sutherland has served as the CEO, CTO or vice president of engineering for 11 software companies, accumulating extensive software development experience.
Ken Schwaber's
original career was also very special-merchant ship manager. In the first 10 years of his development career for more than 40 years, he once wrote operating systems, engaged in embedded systems, and developed system software for IBM mainframes; successively worked in the laboratories of the University of Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Wang’an Company. Demonstrate talent in software development methods. When CASE tools and structured methods were popular, he founded ADM company by himself, engaged in software development method training services. During the period, the company developed the software method automation tool MATE, which was used to generate the templates and plans required by various software processes. The business was very good.
---From Baidu Encyclopedia
After knowing the two founders, we have stepped into the topic, what exactly is scrum? First of all, the word comes from the game of rugby. Maybe many friends are unfamiliar with rugby. We know that when there are fouls or dead balls in basketball, in rugby, when such a situation occurs, the referee will judge scrum. You can simply understand For "scrambling the ball", this metaphor is like our team working together to do a good project, we need to be full of passion, we need to push to the enemy camp step by step.
And speaking of it, scrum is an agile practice framework. The term framework fully reflects the characteristics of scrum. It is like building a building frame when building a building. It looks like a building, but there are many necessary details. No, scrum stated 3355, but for an enterprise to make agile transformation, it needs to be based on scrum (assuming you decide to use scrum), combined with XP, Kanban or other agile methods, and continue to accumulate experience based on the status quo of the enterprise Lessons learned will build majestic buildings step by step. So although scrum is the agile method with the highest market share, like we say that agile is not a silver bullet, scrum is not a master key either.
Scrum is a development framework for cross-functional teams to develop products or projects in an iterative and incremental manner. It organizes development into a work cycle called Sprint. Each of these iterations does not exceed 4 weeks (the most common is two weeks), and they are carried out in succession without interruption.
Typical characteristics of an excellent team
Since scrum wants us to work together like a team, what are the characteristics of a good team (team)?
1 Consistent goals Any good team will have clear and consistent goals. For a basketball team, the goal of a season may be to win a championship, enter the playoffs or train new players, the specific details are In every game, some teams may be determined to win, and some teams want to run in a new lineup, or experiment with new tactics, but anyway, there must be goals, and the most important thing is consistency. An agile team is also Similarly, if the goals of the members are inconsistent, 1+1=2 cannot be guaranteed. Don't expect more than 2. What's more serious is that the goals conflict and the team may face rupture. How can you ensure the success of the project?
2 Personal professional ability We say that agile emphasizes team combat, but it is not that individual professional ability is not important. Individual professional ability should be the foundation. Agile emphasizes cross-functional teams. We hope that everyone can have many qualities and abilities. Just like the famous basketball star James, as a forward, he has strong organizational skills and balanced abilities in all aspects. Another example is the famous "center" Rondo coach (you must know the meaning of this sentence), and the agile team also Similarly, I hope that everyone can do more. I hope that many people have the ability to solve any problem, but they also need to have the power to tackle tough problems and outstanding skills. Players like Jordan and Kobe need one. When the ball determines the outcome, you should "pass me the damn ball!".
3 Timely review review is very common in the game. The coach will call a timeout during the game. In addition to arranging tactics during the timeout, the players should also help the players review the situation and performance on the field so that they can make adjustments after playing. Later, everyone will discuss the game in the locker room and watch the game video. This is undoubtedly a typical example of review. In the agile team, there will be stand-up meetings every day, and the stand-up meetings will also mention what I did yesterday. , Is there any difficulty, and at the end of each iteration, there will be a formal retrospective meeting. I always believe that an agile team that does not hold retrospective meetings is not an agile team at all.
4 The right coach introduces a new role scrum master in scrum. The reason why it is called the new role is that he is fundamentally different from the traditional project manager role. The key word of the project manager is the word “management”. The key word of the scrum master is the two words "service". This difference fully reflects the positioning of the two functions, and the role played by the scrum master in the team, in addition to serving the team and protecting the team from interference, Like coaches in various competitions, they need to instruct, train, and guide, be able to find problems and provide help.
The famous basketball coach Popovich helped the Spurs win multiple championships. There are many examples of second-round picks and undrafted picks being cultivated step by step in the team, and this team also has a famous rotation. Tactics, let the team always maintain a strong combat effectiveness, this is what the coach should do.
5 Resilience In a game, the players on the field arrange the game according to the coach's tactics, but not all movements need to be arranged step by step by the coach. The players should adjust flexibly according to the changes on the field. One has the ability to quickly adjust Teams in China are often able to control the situation on the court. We can often see when watching games. After players discover problems, they spontaneously gather together to communicate with each other. This process does not need to wait for the coach’s instructions. This is a team initiative. The behavior is a manifestation of expecting communication and collaboration to solve problems together.
And agile teams must also have good adaptability, which is what we said in the Agile Manifesto, "Respond to change is better than follow a plan", and adaptability also requires personal ability, technical architecture flexibility, organizational process adaptability, etc. All aspects of support.
6 Good atmosphere Whether it is basketball, football or other team sports, if there are always conflicts among the players in the team, if they can’t be resolved well, it will definitely affect the team’s performance. Players are vying to be the boss and on the court. There are countless examples of non-cooperation and social media interaction. Agile teams also need a good atmosphere, and the agile philosophy has always emphasized people-oriented, respect and trust culture is highly respected, and a good atmosphere can make the team grow quickly , Which reflects the super combat effectiveness, and the bad team atmosphere will create barriers between members, start dividing work boundaries between members, shirk their work and blame each other, so that the team lacks team strength and cannot face difficulties.
The above is the typical characteristics of an excellent team derived from scrum derived from rugby and combined with sports. I hope to bring you inspiration and thinking, so we look back, if the scrum team is like a football team, then the traditional team is like what? It may be more like a relay race. There is an obvious handover between the functional teams. Even if the test is in a hurry, you must wait at the designated location. The test activity cannot be started unless the development is completed, just like the previous person in the relay race. After running the specified distance, the next player can't grab the baton. This is a foul! The foul is very serious, because it is not implemented in accordance with the standard procedures, and everyone can only move within their own scope.
One of the expositions about waste in Lean is the waste of "waiting". Think about how much time we wait in our daily work, wait for the meeting in a few minutes, wait for the other party’s reply email, and wait for the leadership’s instructions. When waiting for others to be free, waiting for...
Core values of scrum
Having said so much above, it seems that the core content of scrum has not been mentioned. Those who know scrum should know that there is the concept of 3355 in scrum. Then let's talk about one of the 5 or 5 core values: commitment, focus, and openness. , Respect, courage ;
1 Commitment Commitment mainly refers to the willingness to make a commitment to the goal. Remember that in Stephen Chow's movie "The King of Comedy", Stephen Chow asked Cecilia Cheung: "Can you not go to work?" Cecilia Cheung said: "If you don't go to work, you can support me?" , Zhou Xingchi hesitated, and this hesitant action is to dare not make promises. We have something to promise in every role in scrum. The product must make promises to product planning, the team must make promises to the task, and the scrum master Make a commitment on how to follow agile thinking. Commitment is not for others to hear, but for oneself and for the heart.
2 What to focus on? It must be focused on the job you promised. For example, there are slogans on buses that don’t chat with drivers. Drivers need to focus, traffic police need to focus, doctors need to focus, focus means higher efficiency, and focus can avoid unnecessary Risks. In scrum, the team’s focus must be paid special attention. Because we always say that agile embraces change, some people mistakenly believe that agile can change at any time and change at will. If you have new ideas, you must try. Yes, the team should be focused during the sprint and should not be disturbed. It is the scrum master's job to ensure that the team is not interfered by outsiders.
3 Openness When it comes to openness, we can think of Kanban, which is often used in conjunction with scrum. Kanban is a good embodiment of the value of openness. Information can be opened through Kanban visualization, and openness in scrum can also be reflected in many aspects. For example, open space, such as connecting the result of continuous integration with a signal light, and an alarm if the integration fails, are all concrete manifestations of openness.
4 Respect The culture of respect for agility has been mentioned in previous articles. As the saying goes, three people must have my teacher. Even in life, there should be full respect between parents and children. Parents always think that children are still young. , What I ask you to do, you just do it, and when we try to change the way of getting along, you will find that the child is not young, he knows a lot of truth, he also wants to be respected, and the various roles in the scrum team Respect each other, not just verbally saying I respect you, but understanding and empathizing with each other.
5 Courage Speaking of courage, one can't help but think of a classic movie "When Happiness Knocks on the Door". The hero in the movie faces an unfamiliar industry under financial constraints and various unsatisfactory conditions in life, and muster the courage to meet Challenges, we expect that agile teams will also have sufficient courage. This courage is not a "reckless behavior", but more like the concept of management by objectives (MBO). Set goals higher and work hard to do better. , The team must maintain confidence in itself and hope to meet more challenges. Of course, such a state cannot be achieved by simply speaking orally. It requires a good team culture, a culture of innovation, an open culture, and a culture of trust. Changes from top to bottom also require feedback and support from bottom to top.
The above are the 5 core values of scrum, which may seem hollow now. I believe you will have more insights when more scrum practices are introduced later.
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