Do the right thing, do it right and do it faster!
When I attended my Certified Scrum Master (CSM) course a few years ago, the facilitator summed scrum up with the sentence above.
This week I am exploring Scrum and specifically what ails scrum.
I am reading SCRUM: The art of doing twice the work in half the time by Jeff Sutherland who is the co-creator of Scrum. Needless to say, it is a fascinating read.
I also keep getting asked by my clients on why they cannot run all their projects faster using Scrum and my answer almost always goes back to the first line of this post.
What is needed to do the right thing, do it right and do it faster?
A lot of my clients come up with words like trust, purpose, people, attitude, teamwork, autonomy, communication among others.
While all of them are true in some sense, I reckon there is one thing that either breeds all of the above: SKILLS
It's like this - Would you allow a bunch of great mates to fly a plane (obviously with you seated) if you knew they weren't qualified pilots?
It's the same with skills. Here is how:
Doing the right thing - A skilled product owner is critical in deciding whether the scrum team is doing the right thing or not. Without this, they may be efficient but ineffective.
Doing it right - Ever got ripped off by a car mechanic, only to realise they didnt know how to service a car? It's the same with the build team - If you do not have all the necessary skills within the team, all you will do is keep pushing items from one sprint to the other and keep wondering why.
Doing it faster - Ever tried to accelerate your car with your handbrakes on? You will notice that it takes a bit of time (even if it is a few seconds) to realise there is something stopping you from going faster. A good scrum master notices the handbrake instantly and points it to you so that you can get on with driving.
In summary, while purpose, trust etc. are all important, the fact is - Scrum teams without skills go nowhere.
Have a great week ahead.
#scrum #skills
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay