1. Getting Started
There’s us and the dead.
We survive this by pulling together, not apart.
—Rick Grimes, AMC’s The Walking Dead
In This Chapter
• Start recognizing that something may be off with how Scrum is used in your team.
• Explore the purpose of this book.
• Discover for whom this book is perfectly suited.
Congratulations on joining the Zombie Scrum Resistance! Your membership comes with all kinds of perks and benefits. In your hands, you are holding the Zombie Scrum Survival Guide. All new members get one. This guide contains our collective experiences. It will equip you with everything needed in your ongoing struggle against Zombie Scrum.
You may have picked up this book because something feels off with how your team or organization is working with Scrum. Or you casually walked into the office this morning and noticed a number of zombies staring at you (Figure 1.1). Whatever the case, we expect you to be reading this guide while trapped in a challenging situation. Maybe you are hiding out in the broom closet, beneath a pile of Sprint Goal templates, or behind a flip chart with the results of last month’s Retrospective. Although no one will find you there for a while, we still know that time is of the essence for you. So let us not mince words and get right into it.
Figure 1.1 Just another day at the office?
Do You Recognize This?
You’ve been working as the Scrum Master for team Power Rangers for a year now. When you started with Scrum, all seemed well. You liked the idea of building small, incremental versions of your product. The team seemed to like it too. It made sense.
But somewhere along the way, something went wrong, although you’re unsure where. What you are sure of is that this isn’t working. Just consider how the events in Scrum are going, for example. Daily Scrums always take too long, with people going on and on about that one thing they’ve been working on. And because everyone’s working on their own things anyway, nobody pays attention. The Sprint Retrospective that promised “continuous improvement” results in the same minor improvements that never really get addressed every single time (like “fix the router,” “better coffee,” and “I don’t like Timmy”). Initially this surprised you—you expected people to get the hang of the format that the team always uses. But now you’ve just accepted that nothing really comes out of this time spent in a boring, smelly meeting room. Except for stickies with words on them that inevitably end up in your drawer as a reminder to do something with it in the future.
And let’s not get started about the Sprint Review. That awkward moment at the end of a Sprint where the message is basically that “We’re almost done.” But with only the Development Team—and sometimes the Product Owner—attending, it doesn’t really matter anyway. There’s always another Sprint to finish the work. Even the Product Owner stopped caring.
Welcome to the world of “Zombie Scrum,” a heartbreaking condition where people are simply going through the motions, imitating real Scrum, but without being alive or engaged. Over time, you’ve learned to accept that this is apparently what Scrum is for this organization. And if nobody cares about it, why should you? But still, you have this nagging feeling that things can be better. Then you found this book.
How Bad Is It, Really?
We are continuously monitoring the spread and prevalence of Zombie Scrum with our online Symptoms Checker at survey.zombiescrum.org. Of the Scrum Teams that have participated at the time of writing:1
• 77% don’t actively collaborate with customers or have a clear vision on what they need.
• 69% don’t work in an environment where they can self-organize around shared goals.
• 67% don’t manage to deliver working and high-quality software every Sprint.
• 62% don’t work in an environment where they can improve over time.
• 42% feel that Scrum isn’t very effective for them.
1 The percentages represent teams that scored a 6 or lower on a 10-point scale. Each topic was measured with 10 to 30 questions. The results represent 1,764 teams that participated in the self-reported survey at survey.zombiescrum.org between June 2019 and May 2020.
Purpose of This Book
There are many excellent books on Scrum out there that you should definitely read. What makes this a book worth reading? In our work with Scrum Teams, we noticed a strong pattern: most begin with great enthusiasm, only to find themselves stuck in complacency, merely going through the motions after a while. Curiously, few people in the community seemed to talk about this or were willing to admit openly that it wasn’t working for them. So we decided to test our assumptions, capture some zombies (see Figure 1.2), and gather data. Was it just us or was this actually a widespread phenomenon? It turned out the problem was worse than we thought.
Figure 1.2 Thankfully, capturing zombies to talk to wasn’t hard.
The Zombie Scrum Survival Guide is a book about practical strategies to start recovering from Zombie Scrum. While writing this book, we kept three principles in mind:
• We don’t assume that management is supportive, that all team members are enthusiastic about the change, nor that the entire organization is involved. Instead, we work from a position where, according to our research, most Scrum Teams find themselves: stuck in an environment where it is difficult to make even minor changes.
• We want to help you understand why Zombie Scrum is happening on a fundamental level while also equipping you with practical tools to start improving.
• We want to help you build communities of people, both within and outside your organization, to start resolving the hard challenges that you face.
Do You Need This Book?
This book is for everyone who works with Scrum and feels that it just isn’t working. You may be part of a Scrum Team yourself or work very closely with them. It may not even be called “Scrum” where you work, even though it has all the characteristics.
Perhaps you can easily point out what isn’t working. Or something just feels off and Scrum is not doing what you hoped it would do. It doesn’t matter if you are a Scrum Master, Product Owner, a member of a Development Team, an Agile Coach, or someone in a management position.
Wherever you are and whatever you do, this book is for you if you recognize at least one thing from the checklist shown in Table 1.1 in the Scrum Team(s) you work with.
Check Your Scrum Team
Zombie Scrum can be hard to spot, which makes it all the more devious. Diagnose your team for free with our Zombie Scrum Symptoms Checker at survey.zombiescrum.org.
How This Book Is Organized
You probably don’t have time to read this book in one go if you find yourself surrounded by hungry zombies. You need to act now! So the next chapter is a First Aid Kit. It will help you get moving as quickly as possible to get out of harm’s way.
When you’ve overcome the initial shock, it’s time to delve deeper into this book and find helpful strategies to recover. With so much to say and so many experiments to offer, we organized this book into five parts. Each part focuses on one area where Zombie Scrum can manifest. You can skip straight to what matters most and visit other parts later:
• Part I: (Zombie) Scrum. We set the stage by exploring what Zombie Scrum looks like. What are the symptoms and causes? And how is it spreading? We will then help you understand the underlying purpose of the Scrum Framework, and how it is all about navigating complex problems and reducing risk.
• Part II: Build What Stakeholders Need. Scrum Teams exist to deliver value to stakeholders. But teams that suffer from Zombie Scrum are so distant from stakeholders, and so unaware of their needs, that they have no idea what value means.
• Part III: Ship It Fast. Shipping fast allows Scrum Teams to learn what their stakeholders need and reduce the risks of building the wrong things. In organizations with Zombie Scrum, this is so challenging that teams are effectively unable to learn.
• Part IV: Improve Continuously. Many tough impediments will emerge when Scrum Teams try to build what customers need and start shipping faster. But that only works if those impediments are resolved, even when it is done one step at a time. This rarely happens in Zombie Scrum and teams remain stuck where they started.
• Part V: Self-Organize. When Scrum Teams have autonomy and control over how to do their work, it makes it much easier for them to improve continuously and overcome all those tough impediments that get in their way. Unfortunately, organizations with Zombie Scrum limit the ability of teams to self-manage to such an extent that everyone effectively remains stuck.
Each part follows a similar structure. We start with a case taken from our personal experience. You may recognize some or all of it. This may be a painful realization, but we want to prepare you for the worst.
After the case, we present the results of our research. We describe the most common symptoms of Zombie Scrum for the part that you are reading. Based on our research, you learn how to reliably identify Zombie Scrum in this area and understand what may be causing it. This is important because it helps you understand how Zombie Scrum manifests itself and makes it easier to explain what is happening and get others to join our mission.
After presenting our research on symptoms and causes, we offer a variety of experiments that you can try immediately to start recovering. All experiments are based on direct, real-life experience. Some are simple and straightforward. Others require more effort and energy. But results are guaranteed for all of them. While it is unlikely that this cures Zombie Scrum right away, these experiments will improve the situation you are in. Most experiments can be easily modified for virtual use with remote teams; others will require more creativity. See zombiescrum.org for more information and more experiments.
Our last chapter helps you get started on The Road to Recovery. No matter how bad things are, there is always hope. Every infection of Zombie Scrum can be treated and cured.
No Time to Lose: Off You Go!
We’re in this nightmare together, and the time to do something about it was many years ago. We are losing people to Zombie Scrum faster than we are recruiting them to join the Zombie Scrum Resistance (Figure 1.3).
Figure 1.3 Join the Zombie Scrum Resistance.
This Survival Guide equips you with a host of valuable experiments to use in your fight against Zombie Scrum. We won’t waste time explaining all the details of how Zombie Scrum has spread across the globe. Instead, we want you to be ready for the fight against it and make a difference within your team immediately.
“Always remember, recruit: Your mind is your sharpest weapon! It gets even better when you enlist the help and support of others. The Zombie Scrum Resistance is there for you. You are not alone in this struggle!”
