David Starr
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At Scrum.org, we sometimes dare to talk about our what we do as “bringing humanity to work.” Sometimes I get reminded this idea is more than hyperbole or aggrandizing.
This week I was a guest speaker at a small symposium on DevOps in my hometown of Seattle. I spoke about Scrum.org’s take on DevOps, which we shall leave as the subject of a future post.
As the event was wrapping up, I was approached by an attendees who looked me square in the eye and with full sincerity posed the following question.
How can we get all of those things you mentioned without changing everything?
I simply didn’t know what to say. This seems to be the logical equivalent of an unfit person asking:
How can I win a medal at the next Olympics without making any changes to my lifestyle or training?
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been dumbstruck by this, but I felt for a moment as though I were in the punchline frame of a Dilbert cartoon. I don’t know this person. Any attempt to ascribe a reason to his question is conjecture, but the question has been asked before many times by others. Why?
Why might someone say such a thing? Perhaps because the benefits being discussed are obvious, but change (especially unforeseen change) creates fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). The FUD created by change can be seen in an old agilist tool, the Change Curve. Read more about change response as grief and the change curve here.
After considering what this person may be feeling while simultaneously craving the changes I proposed in my talk, I’m seeing the question in a different light. Now I have questions of my own.
Has he been hurt before by a previous attempt to improve? We all have.
Does he work for an oppressive boss? A bully? It’s common.
Is the culture in his workplace one that generates fear? Many exist.
What caused him to leave work today and come to this event? People in desperate situations often reach out for help. Maybe he’s here because he’s desperate to save his company.
In fact, the person asking this question is exactly who agile values can liberate. Liberation could even mean working in an organization with a culture that welcomes change instead of fearing it. Imagine the difference that could make in people’s lives.
I've been reminded that just because someone is resistant to change doesn’t mean they don't want it.
Oct 2, 2014
Today we are pleased to announce the release of ScrumGuides.org, a branding-free website providing the single authoritative definition of Scrum.
For the last several years, Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber, the original creators of Scrum, have worked together to maintain the rules of Scrum in the Scrum Guide. This document has been traditionally hosted on the Scrum.org website. Although the Guide has been translated into many languages and been around the world, not all Scrum practitioners recognized its authority. That makes sense given various Scrum “authorities” have emerged in the world who want to sell their own interpretation of Scrum.
Today that changes as Scrum.org, Scrum Inc., and the Scrum Alliance have come together to release a brand-free, community-focused version of the Scrum Guide. This recognizes the authority of Ken and Jeff to define Scrum itself, and means that both Scrum.org and Scrum Alliance agree on what Scrum actually is!
Lastly, there is an HTML version of the Scrum Guide on the new site so that various sections of it may be linked to directly. Enjoy.
Visit the new site
Sep 24, 2014
Scrum.org holds a consistently high quality bar for our instructors. The result is a tremendously mature and capable cadre of experts working together to realize our shared mission of improving the profession of software development. The full list of of our PSTs (Professional Scrum Trainers) is here.
It takes more than a standard understanding of Scrum, or deep knowledge of the Scrum Guide, to become a PST. Successful candidates have deep understanding of empiricism with Scrum and how to apply it to improving technology organizations. They have lived it and have the scars to prove it.
Further, this community is exactly that. A collaborative community of practitioners and leaders who help each other improve, learn, and succeed. PSTs regularly come together in venues all around the world for Face-to-Face events, like the one shown in this video shot by PST Lare Laekman (one can never really get enough Billy Ocean).
If you are one of the rare few who meet this bar, and you are interested the PST program, we’ve made the process a bit simpler for you. We recently revised our website to reflect simplifications in the PST (Professional Scrum Trainer) application process. We refer to the process of certifying new instructors as the “PST pipeline”. Complete documentation on the PST pipeline is here.
One of the first steps in the pipeline (after the initial application) is to attend a Professional Scrum training taught by one of a select group of very senior trainers able to assess and provide feedback to aspiring PSTs. These train-the-trainer classes have been reletively few in number over the last year and we’ve decided to be more active in making these opportunities known.
Accordingly, the following is a list of qualifying public Professional Scrum classes that will be held in coming months. These are simply public Professional Scrum Master classes, but they are taught by key Scrum.org staff who are able to evaluate PST candidates. PST candidates will often meet privately with the instructor after the initial class is over to have more in depth conversations about the program and community.
If you are interested in becoming a PST, start with the application process linked above; keep these class events in mind as they are the first step on your path toward teaching Professional Scrum curriculum.
A current list of qualifying classes is always available on the program landing page.
If you are an experienced Scrum practitioner, an accomplished technologist, a capable teacher, and you are up for a challenge, then you can get started there. Maybe you’ll end up in a photo like this one!
Sep 10, 2014
The simple cycle of trying, inspecting, and adapting must be as old as mankind. Can’t you just picture Homo Erectus learning to control fire? I bet scorched fingers and cold nights were fairly common for a millennia or so while we refined the art of spark and tinder.
Sep 3, 2014
The Scrum.org blog is branching out to include our entire expert community! Now, readers will get more than the occasional formal article. The collective wisdom of all 150-ish Scrum.org Experts will be streaming to you on a regular basis.
Help Seed the Content
The Scrum.org community has some of the smartest and most experienced agile experts in the world (just look at all the books they’ve written). These folks have an amazingly deep toolbox to draw from for inspiration in their writing, but why not tell them what you'd like to know more about?
What topics would you like the community to address on this blog? Let us know in the comments below, and keep in mind that the mission of Scrum.org is Improving the Profession of Software Development. Scrum just happens to be the primary way we go about delivering on that mission, but there is a wealth of tech industry wisdom in this group. Anything relevant to our profession is on the table.
You May Have Missed
In the lead up to launching the blog, several authors have already contributed articles, which may not have shown up in standard notification systems. Don't miss these articles:
Branching, Work In Progress, & Employee Retention by Ben Day
With A Little Help From My Friends by Illya Pavlichenko
Agile 2014 Recap and a Slight Rant by David Starr
A better way than staggered iterations for delivery by Martin Hinshelwood
Aug 13, 2014
The Scrum.org crew just returned from the Agile 2014 conference in Orlando. The great conversations with attendees were as good as the sessions themselves. There are people doing some truly amazing things with Scrum and software and this conference is a great place to meet up with them.
I haven’t attended the Agile Alliance conference in a few years, and was delighted to re-familiarize myself with it. I had a special tie to the event this year as a track chair for Developer Practices and Craftsmanship track. My co-chair, K. Scott Allen, and I are very pleased with how the track shaped up and I know a lot of people who really got value from the sessions. Big thanks to the speakers!
Scrum.org in the House
Scrum.org staff, trainers, and consultants were on hand all week. Our general consensus is that the conference is improving. This year felt like a real conversation with a very dynamic community. Only a few notable exceptions (as explained below) were spotted. You can bet Scrum.org will attend again next year!
Some great sessions were lead by members of the Scrum.org community. They represent quite a diverse collection of topics! PDFs of slide decks are included on most sessions.
State of Agile - Ken Schwaber
Better Unit Tests through Design Patterns: Repository, Adapter, Mocks, and more – Ben Day
Tribes and Travelers: The Agile Scaling World Café Workshop - Charles Bradley and Uta Kapp
Agile Families: Techniques for Living Peacefully with Change - David Starr
On Time, On Budget? What the…?
On a sadder note, I found this sign in the exhibiter hall. This is a tool company promising “On time and budget” after affixing the word “Scrum” behind their name.
Eww. Icky.
Focusing on time and budget “as per the plan” certainly misses the real benefit of Scrum: Empiricism.
It’s easy to forget that Scrum used well doesn’t just turn the production crank in development teams. Genuinely effective Scrum enables companies to deliver value early and respond intelligently to reality as they do it. Time and budget thinking focuses on costs, not value. Cost-focused thinking is the core source of inhumane workplaces. Cost-thinking doesn’t value people. Cost thinking completely ignores the values expressed in the agile manifesto.
This simple sign signals the weakest understanding of agility, and is all too common in our industry. With messages like these being spread by tool makers and consultants, it is easy to see how so many teams fail to get real value from great ideas like Scrum.
Aug 11, 2014
David's Certifications
Professional Scrum Master I
Professional Scrum Master II
Professional Scrum Master III
Professional Scrum Product Owner I
Professional Scrum Developer I
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