There is a huge debate in the Agile community about the job of the Scrum Master: Should Scrum Masters focus on the optimization of the delivery capabilities of an organization (optimizing the output) or should they help with the value maximization of an organization (maximizing outcome)?
The quick answer is: both. In this blog post I’ll try to bridge the two factions – you’ve read right: I try. And I also show an example what Scrum Masters can do about it.
In his trainings, Jeff Sutherland taught a section called “Mathematics of Production”. He explains what we’re trying to improve with Scrum. By focusing on a companywide prioritization, empowering the Product Owners to figure out what to produce, and empowering the Scrum Masters to remove organizational debt and increasing process efficiency (/3/), we can help the organization to deliver meaningful features to its customers.
Jeff’s approach is based an on phenomenon from evolutionary biology, called “Punctuated Equilibrium”. He explains this 2008 in a talk at Google (/4/). System evolve through constant changes. When we want to improve our system, we want to look constantly for the next smallest experiment or step that we can take. This is a continuous empirical discovery process.
Jeff has also put this discovery process in the Scrum@Scale Guide. Based on a conversation between Jeff Patton, who is strong voice for using Scrum as a discovery framework, and me, we wrote in the first Scrum@Scale Guide in the Feedback section (/5/):
“The goals of obtaining and analyzing Feedback are to:
• validate assumptions
• understand how customers use and interact with the product”
The quick answer is: both. In this blog post I’ll try to bridge the two factions – you’ve read right: I try. And I also show an example what Scrum Masters can do about it.
Jeff Sutherland, co-creator of Scrum, and his son JJ Sutherland wrote a book in 2014, with the title “Scrum: The art of doing twice the work in half the time” (/1/). In this book both authors describe the history of Scrum and show many examples how Scrum can be applied. It’s Jeff’s life’s story.
Critics accuse the authors of choosing the wrong title: It creates a narrative that Scrum is focused on optimizing the delivery and being more efficient.
The accusation is, that this focus might be the ONLY thing, that is important for Jeff.
“Twice the Work in Half the Time” is actually a quote from the lean community. In 1996, James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones wrote the book “Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation”. In Chapter 11, “An Action Plan”, they write: “Meanwhile, in product development and order-taking, converting from batch-and-queue to flow will permit your organization to do twice the work in half the time with the same number of people.” (/2/)
So, by changing the work system, we can accomplish more with the same people. It is not about pushing people or forcing them to work faster, it’s about changing the conditions for the people, so that they can finish more work.
Critics accuse the authors of choosing the wrong title: It creates a narrative that Scrum is focused on optimizing the delivery and being more efficient.
The accusation is, that this focus might be the ONLY thing, that is important for Jeff.
“Twice the Work in Half the Time” is actually a quote from the lean community. In 1996, James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones wrote the book “Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation”. In Chapter 11, “An Action Plan”, they write: “Meanwhile, in product development and order-taking, converting from batch-and-queue to flow will permit your organization to do twice the work in half the time with the same number of people.” (/2/)
So, by changing the work system, we can accomplish more with the same people. It is not about pushing people or forcing them to work faster, it’s about changing the conditions for the people, so that they can finish more work.
But should we only look at maximizing the output? Does it make sense to deliver work that no customer will use?
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| Jeff Sutherland: The Mathematics of Production |
In his trainings, Jeff Sutherland taught a section called “Mathematics of Production”. He explains what we’re trying to improve with Scrum. By focusing on a companywide prioritization, empowering the Product Owners to figure out what to produce, and empowering the Scrum Masters to remove organizational debt and increasing process efficiency (/3/), we can help the organization to deliver meaningful features to its customers.
Jeff’s approach is based an on phenomenon from evolutionary biology, called “Punctuated Equilibrium”. He explains this 2008 in a talk at Google (/4/). System evolve through constant changes. When we want to improve our system, we want to look constantly for the next smallest experiment or step that we can take. This is a continuous empirical discovery process.
Jeff has also put this discovery process in the Scrum@Scale Guide. Based on a conversation between Jeff Patton, who is strong voice for using Scrum as a discovery framework, and me, we wrote in the first Scrum@Scale Guide in the Feedback section (/5/):
“The goals of obtaining and analyzing Feedback are to:
• validate assumptions
• understand how customers use and interact with the product”
What can we do?
We can this with the following approach. In 2018, Jeff and I had a conversation about how we could define these smallest steps. On a team level or on an organizational level we could try these 6 steps:
The Scrum Master helps the Scrum team and the organization to take these steps. Everything, that keeps us from doing this, should be considered as an organizational impediment. It should be made visible on a transparent companywide impediment backlog. The progress of the impediment removal should be visible to everyone.
Summary:
Scrum is a discovery and a delivery framework. The six steps can help us with optimizing the outcome and improving the whole system with realistic, small steps, every day.
Notes:
/1/ Sutherland, J. V. (2019). Scrum: The art of doing twice the work in half the time. Random House. https://crownpublishing.com/archives/feature/scrum-the-art-of-doing-twice-the-work-in-half-the-time
/2/ Womack, James P.; Jones, Daniel T.. Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation . Free Press. Kindle Edition, location 4483.
/3/ Jeff about Process Efficiency: https://www.scruminc.com/process-efficiency-scrum-matters-measure/
/4/ Self-Organization: The Secret Sauce for Improving your Scrum team, September 2008, https://youtu.be/M1q6b9JI2Wc, minute 45:25
/5/ https://www.scrumatscale.com/scrum-at-scale-guide-online/#product-feedback-and-release-feedback
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The Scrum Master helps the Scrum team and the organization to take these steps. Everything, that keeps us from doing this, should be considered as an organizational impediment. It should be made visible on a transparent companywide impediment backlog. The progress of the impediment removal should be visible to everyone.
Summary:
Scrum is a discovery and a delivery framework. The six steps can help us with optimizing the outcome and improving the whole system with realistic, small steps, every day.
Notes:
/1/ Sutherland, J. V. (2019). Scrum: The art of doing twice the work in half the time. Random House. https://crownpublishing.com/archives/feature/scrum-the-art-of-doing-twice-the-work-in-half-the-time
/2/ Womack, James P.; Jones, Daniel T.. Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation . Free Press. Kindle Edition, location 4483.
/3/ Jeff about Process Efficiency: https://www.scruminc.com/process-efficiency-scrum-matters-measure/
/4/ Self-Organization: The Secret Sauce for Improving your Scrum team, September 2008, https://youtu.be/M1q6b9JI2Wc, minute 45:25
/5/ https://www.scrumatscale.com/scrum-at-scale-guide-online/#product-feedback-and-release-feedback
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