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Nike Principles relationship to Scrum

Last post 07:20 am June 15, 2023 by Pierre Pienaar
3 replies
02:09 pm June 13, 2023

I recently watched the movie Air on Amazon Prime. It is about how Nike pursued basketball rookie Michael Jordan to join their struggling basketball division.

 

A common thread though the movie was the inclusion of their original 10 principles from 1977. Seeing them made me think about how they relate all these years later in an Agile world and how they can apply to the Scrum Framework.

 

1. Our Business is Change

In Scrum, one of the core principles is to “Respond to change over following a plan”.

2. We’re on offense. All the time.

Scrum emphasizes the importance of being proactive and taking initiative. The team is encouraged to take a proactive approach to their work and continuously look ways to improve a deliver greater value.

3. Perfect results count – not a perfect process. Break the Rules: Fight the Law

In Scrum, breaking the rules refers to challenging traditional methods or adapting the framework to better suit the team's context and achieve the desired results. It encourages questioning conventional thinking and exploring alternative approaches within the framework

4. This is as much about battle as about business

While the language of "battle" may not translate perfectly to the Scrum Framework, this rule highlights the importance of competitiveness, teamwork, alignment, common purpose, and Agile principles. By embracing these qualities, the team can collaborate and work towards success through a positive and competitive mindset.

5. Assume Nothing; Make sure people keep their promises, Push yourselves push others, Stretch the possible

This principle can be rephrased as “Take nothing for granted” and relates to the Scrum Theory of “Transparency”, “Inspect” and “Adapt”

6. Live off the land

Scrum teams are encouraged to focus on delivering value through a simple and efficient approach. "Living off the land" can be seen as the application of a similar principle, where the team is encouraged to use the resources they have available to them (e.g., tools, frameworks, architecture) rather than relying on more complex or expensive solutions.

7. Your job isn’t done until the job is done.

The Scrum team commits a Definition of Done. This is the formal description of the state of the increment when it meets the quality measurements required for the product.

8. Dangers; Bureaucracy, Personal ambition, Energy takers vs . energy givers, Knowing our weaknesses, Don’t get too many things on the platter

The fourth Scrum Value, “Respect”, emphasizes the importance of creating a culture of collaboration, trust and mutual respect.

9. It won’t be pretty

A key event in Scrum is the Retrospective, where teams identify the most helpful changes to improve their effectiveness. The should select the most impactful improvements and address them as soon as possible.

10. If we do the right things we’ll make money damn near automatic.

The Scrum value of focus on Business Value emphasizes on the importance of focusing on the needs of the customer and delivering value.


05:37 pm June 14, 2023

Only common thing is focus on result in my opinion.

Nike principe are typical push and win strategy, which prevails in may corporation today

Scrum is based on Agile and Lean which are in turn based on East Asian, particularly Japanese ideas of saving time and energy, being relaxed, avoiding stress and achieving success simply by doing right thing in a right time.

Of all Agile branches Scrum is most defensive success mechanism aiming on success primarily through identifying and removing obstacles instead of fighting the way through.

Basically its like comparing power and stamina based fighting discipline like boxing with asian martial arts which are based on flexibility and caution 


07:17 am June 15, 2023

Perfect results count – not a perfect process

Sport often takes an all or nothing approach, while Scrum is more about sustainability in my opinion. However I do like this one though, as people often want to do the process perfect, and perfect in their own understanding, and then sacrifice on the real results. 


07:20 am June 15, 2023

@Nicholas - good analogies.


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