Scrum was inspired by the article “The New New Product Development Game” (’86). It introduced a new way to develop new products. The question essentially was “how do we get innovation from product development teams?” The emphasis was on speed & flexibility. Several characteristics of successful development included:
- Teams work best when they work autonomously
- Checkpoints are needed to prevent instability, ambiguity, & tension from turning into chaos.
- Continuous learning is essential
- Mistakes are both tolerated & anticipated
- Management must adopt a management style that can promote the new process
The bottom line is to have teams working autonomously but with a set direction / challenge and oversight (but not micro-management). Management has a significant role to coordinate all aspects of the organization that is required for the product. The team must coordinate with other parts of the organization to achieve value.
Scrum is essentially a framework for doing & learning. The approach requires more of a management shift to create such an environment than it is a how a team is to work. The implications of this when adopting Scrum in most organizations is significant.