What I have Learned from Scrum

Here are some things I have learned from Scrum.

• Cross functional teams are good. Just having them achieves a three to tenfold improvement over a group of people working on several projects at once. And they improve innovation by the team.
• Time-boxing increases discipline, visibility and the ability to pivot.
• Small batches are good and breaking work down into small pieces is essential.
• Smaller release cycles improve most everything.
• It is useful to have a team coach.
• Do not expect people to figure out what they need to do just because you have put them in a framework.
• Focus on learning the practices of a framework makes learning what you actually need to accomplish (flow) harder.
• People like to be given a set of practices to use.
• Defining a simple set of practices to use can lead to rigid dogma.
• Take an approach that transitions you to the behaviors you need.
• Approaches that work well in one context may not work well in another even though people them everywhere without noticing this.
• And, just because you can put whatever you want into a framework, that doesn’t mean the framework is not prescriptive. In itself, the framework has things you must do.

And finally, it is best to think of frameworks as tools, not solutions.