Chapter 54. The Most Important Thing Isn’t What You Think It Is

Bob Hartman

There are numerous words and phrases that describe Scrum done poorly. We have Scrum-but from the early days of Scrum. We have Dark Scrum. Some people have used the terms Scrummerfall, Water-Scrum-fall, or WAgile. The problems can all be vastly different, but the end result is the same: organizations don’t achieve the results they would achieve if they used Scrum effectively. Most Agile coaches would say, “They are doing it wrong if they aren’t succeeding.” The sentiment may be correct, but what is the solution?

In my experience, there is one key thing that improves the ability to succeed with Scrum. It is obvious, and yet most organizations completely miss it. It is the way Scrum is designed with the transparency, inspection, and adaptation feedback loop from empirical process control. Everything in Scrum revolves around those three pillars of empiricism. The most important thing for Scrum to be successful is to continuously pay attention to those three pillars. Is the team being truly transparent to the Product Owner, stakeholders, and customers? Is everyone honestly inspecting what is being created and how it is being created? Based on the results of those inspections, are adaptations being made to the Product Backlog and the way of working? I generally see teams fail on all three counts. This is why the Scrum Guide says Scrum is simple but not easy.

“What’s the solution?” is a great question deserving an answer. In my Certified ScrumMaster workshops, I make sure to start with an exercise around problems and solutions. I use this exercise to point out that the most important thing in Scrum is to have valuable Sprint Retrospectives. In other words, use the Sprint Retrospective to continually improve. If you don’t use the Sprint Retrospective to continuously improve, then you aren’t adapting, and you won’t ever get the full benefit of Scrum. Many organizations overlook that this adaptation toward continuous improvement is an integral part of Scrum. Scrum is about learning and improving. It is designed to point out flaws that need to be fixed. Ignoring any of the three pillars is disastrous, but this one, adaptation, in my experience, is the most often overlooked and the most valuable when done correctly.

While we are at it, let’s mention the other two pillars. We have problems with transparency and inspection as well. For example, if someone is asked, “We are halfway through the project, what percent completion have you achieved?”, the likely answer is to say, “50%!” It is a fear-based reaction that is unlikely to be truthful. To overcome this tendency, we need to nurture a nonjudgmental environment, an environment that encourages openness because we are all in it together and where no one is judged on individual results.

For inspection, we need to remember to get the right people inspecting things. The CHAOS reports from the Standish Group have consistently rated user, customer, and stakeholder involvement as one of the main keys to having successful project results. We need teams to get closer to users in order for us to get valid feedback from inspections of the work.

Every team should ask how they can be more transparent, improve their ability to inspect, and not be afraid to adapt. It starts with using the Sprint Retrospective effectively!