Does life ever feel like a hack rather than on purpose?

You want your life to have meaning and impact. Daily life is made up of the spaces we gather and the moments we interact with one another.

What if your spaces, moments, and interactions not only felt natural and intuitive but also aligned with your priorities and positively impacted those around you?

Discover your Everyday Design so you can focus on what’s important.

If you're leading a team or a business you need to deliver value. We all want to do meaningful work that has a positive impact, and Scrum is designed to maximize this kind of value. 

So how does Scrum help me deliver value through my work?

To consistently deliver value, you must overcome various obstacles. Each team or organization has its own unique strengths and challenges, but here are three common challenges I think Scrum addresses well.

  1. Prioritization
  2. Unclear or changing requirements
  3. Complexity
person prioritizing

Scrum forces prioritization to happen

Imagine your boss’s boss comes to you excited about a potential feature for a product you’re assigned. You’re uncertain about the value of this feature for the business or client, not to mention you know it will take way more work than they think it will. 

It’s easy to imagine because this situation is so common you may feel like I read through your inbox this morning. Let’s look at how Scrum addresses this challenge.

The product owner plays a crucial role in Scrum. They are responsible for defining and prioritizing the work done to deliver the most value to the business and client. The product owner is the intersection between the team and stakeholders. They continually work with the team to update the prioritization and estimation of work to be done.

This prioritized backlog of work to be done is transparent to anyone, creating clarity and visibility about what the team should and shouldn’t spend time on.

the word change

Scrum handles unclear or changing requirements.

We should expect uncertainty; change is inevitable. The past few years have clearly demonstrated this reality. So what do we do? How do we lead? How does the critical work move forward?

Framing the problem creates clarity.

Requirements are critical in defining the work to be done. But many times, requirements can be ambiguous or continually changing. Scrum uses the tools of user stories and acceptance criteria to clarify the requirements and frame them in terms of the end-user. Framing requirements for the user is a game-changer.

Frequent feedback prevents the team from working very long on “what the stakeholder said, but not what they meant

I’ve had many well-intentioned stakeholders ask for products they would have loved 30 years ago but would be a total miss for our target audience (college students) today. I have to ask, “What do you hope is the impact of this product? What need of the student does it meet, and what action do you hope they will take?” 

These kinds of questions are core to user stories. As we walk through the process, the light bulb usually comes on, and they are willing to step back from their solution and entrust our team to help creatively solve today’s problem.

Working iteratively allows for changes.

Scrum is an iterative process with most of the events commonly occurring on a two-week cycle. These short iterations (sprints) allow the team to receive regular feedback on the work they produce. This frequent feedback prevents the team from working very long on “what the stakeholder said, but not what they meant.”

Scrum brings simplicity to tackle both complexity and volatility

If the requirements change, work is reprioritized by the next sprint, and the team focuses on what will deliver the most value. The team can adapt quickly to these changes.

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Scrum embraces complexity.

I get asked about Scrum a lot. Sometimes, I explain Scrum as a simple framework for tackling complexity by applying a few constraints to empower freedom and creativity. This world is becoming increasingly complex, and so are the projects and products we work on.

It’s tempting to battle complexity with a complex solution, and this becomes more problematic when volatility accompanies the complexity. The complex solution lacks flexibility or resilience and often breaks in an ungraceful way.

Scrum brings simplicity to tackle both complexity and volatility. Scrum doesn’t have a ton of rules and structure, and it has just enough constraints to create clarity around the work to be done, roles and rhythm. These few constraints give the team freedom and flexibility to embrace the complexity and develop solutions.

If you want to learn how Scrum can help you handle complexity and uncertainty with clarity and focus, check out my What is Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.

Does life ever feel like a hack rather than on purpose?

You want your life to have meaning and impact. Daily life is made up of the spaces we gather and the moments we interact with one another.

What if your spaces, moments, and interactions not only felt natural and intuitive but also aligned with your priorities and positively impacted those around you?

Discover your Everyday Design so you can focus on what’s important.

This post is part of an upcoming guide called Everyday Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum where I will explore and explain the key elements of Scrum.

Perhaps you have heard about Scrum but are not exactly sure what it is. Or maybe you know some about it but are not sure how to apply it, especially outside a software development context.

You find my my current and future guides on everyday.design. Signup to be the first to know when new guides are released.

There are a lot of new terms when learning the Scrum essentials, and this post probably introduced you to some of the vocabulary.

If you want to learn more about specific Scrum topics, here are a few to choose from or check out the scrum FAQs.

Applying Scrum

Agile in Everyday Life

Scrum Roles

Scrum Meetings

Scrum General Topics

Scrum Advanced Topics

To learn more about Scrum, check out my What is Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.

FAQs

What is Scrum?

What is the definition of scrum?

Scrum is a team-based framework to increase work visibility allowing for regular evaluation and timely adjustments.

Scrum is founded on three essential pillars leading teams to ask the following questions:

  1. How does this make things more visible? (Transparency)
  2. Where does this create space to evaluate? (Inspection)
  3. When does this encourage growth? (Adaptation)

Further explore the definition of scrum. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.

Is Scrum hard to learn?

The typical response is Scrum is easy to understand but hard to practice.

This is because Scrum’s simplicity makes learning easy, but Scrum truly changes how you work, and that adjustment can be difficult. It changes power dynamics and expectations within the team and between the team and the rest of the organization.

You can explore further is Scrum hard to learn, along with the pros and cons of Scrum. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.

When did Scrum start?

The term was first used in project management in 1986 but the first Scrum project wasn't until 1993.

Scrum was initially used as a term related to project management in 1986 by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka in their paper “New New Product Development Game” In the Harvard Business Review. The first recorded Scrum project came a little later in 1993 from Jeff Sutherland.

You can learn more about Scrum’s backstory. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.

What do all the scrum words mean?

There are many, check the glossary.

Learning Scrum for the first time can be overwhelming. There are a lot of new terms and concepts in Scrum. I’ve listed the most common terms in a Scrum glossary.

How to use Scrum

Why use Scrum?

Scrum is vital for teams to deliver value amidst changing circumstances.

It forces clarity and prioritization, which provides the focus necessary for teams to be effective. Scrum embraces complexity and change by keeping many things simple and iteratively evaluating and adapting. 

You can learn more about why to use Scrum and three challenges Scrum solves. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.

When does Scrum not work well?

Scrum can fail when there is a substantial mismatch between organizational culture and the Scrum values.

Scrum isn’t always the best option for teams. Scrum can fail when there is a substantial mismatch between organizational culture and the Scrum values. It also depends on the nature of the work you do. If you work if very linear, predictable and tightly defined, you may not experience many benefits Scrum provides.

Find out more about aligning your organizational values with Scrum or how Scrum might fit in your context. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.

How do I know when to use Scrum?

When you have a dedicated team, a singular product and are facing uncertainty.

Scrum functions at its best when you have a dedicated team focused on developing a singular product. Its agility shines when there are time constraints combined with uncertainty. 

Explore the pros and cons of Scrum along with expectations vs. realities with Scrum. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.

Learning to apply Scrum

How to choose between Scrum and Kanban?

Scrum and Kanban have many similarities, and which one is right for you will depend on your context.

Important factors include your team size and the type of work you do. Kanban is very process-oriented, so you should consider how defined, static, or long your process is? 

You can explore Scrum and other agile approaches. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.

How does scrum help an organization?

Scrum forces clarity and prioritization.

Scrum forces clarity and prioritization, which are critical to organizational effectiveness. It provides a competitive edge by allowing teams to adapt as the market or priorities change. Teams operate more effectively because Scrum combines empowerment of the team members with alignment to top priorities.

Learn more about scrum’s impact on organizational culture. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.

Is scrum a methodology or a framework?

Scrum is more of a framework than a methodology.

Scrum is more of a framework than a methodology, and it helps teams adhere to Agile principles and get stuff done. Scrum provides basic rules but doesn’t prescribe how to do the work. It provides principles, values, rules, and some core structure but still leaves a lot undefined.

Learn more about scrum as a framework. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.

What’s the difference between scrum and agile?

If you’re practicing Scrum, you’re working in an Agile way.

When people say “agile,” they usually refer to it as a mindset. Scrum is a framework for how to organize people and work in an agile way. If you’re practicing Scrum, you’re working in an Agile way.

Learn more about the relationship between scrum and agile. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.