Common Misconceptions

People think that just by moving to Scrum all their issues will get resolved and magically all timelines will be met, no budgets will ever get overrun, all people will be happy, all customers will be happy, all changes come free and so on….

What Really is Scrum?

Scrum is a framework for solving Complex Adaptive Problems. Complexity means “Unknown-ness”. The Unknowns can be on requirements or on solutions. Where things are unknown, you cannot make detailed plans and just track the plan to closure. In such situations where things are unknown, what you see in front of you can be the only decision factor. Taking decisions based on what you see and constantly Inspect and Adapt based on what you see is called “Empiricism” or “Empirical process Control”. Scrum is a framework which sits on the “Empirical Process Control Theory”. For known problems (requirements known and solutions known), you will not need the inspect-adapt approach. The approach used for known problems is called “Defined Process Control”. Waterfall framework is based on “Defined Process Control”

Recommendations

One must understand that Scrum does not necessarily reduce cost and timelines. In Empirical process control, there will always be a feedback structure since the decisions are taken based on what you see. That means, we think about short-term in detail and long-term at a high level. When we see the results of short-term, we get feedback and then we inspect and adapt based on what we see. Therefore, there may be repetitions due to the feedback structure. Repetitions may mean that some re-work may happen. One must not think that just by doing Scrum, the cost and time will be lesser. If we use Scrum for problem statements which could have been solved using waterfall (or Defined process control), then unnecessary overheads and unnecessary inspect-adapt cycles may increase the cost and timelines. My recommendation is to choose the right framework for the right purposes. Taking a “one-size-fits-all” is not a great idea.

The teams are not necessarily happy doing Scrum. In the Scrum way of doing things, the timeframes are short. Delivery cycles shrink to a few week cycles. There is a constant pressure on teams. Many times, you will notice comments in the team like “Waterfall was better”. Scrum is actually Pervasive. That means people don’t like this drastic change in their lives. This change touches people’s lives. My recommendation is to ensure that every organization first implements a culture which sustains this pressure. The earlier model, where there was “push culture” should change first. Management should not create unnecessary pressure on the teams. Agile principle number 8 should be implemented first “Agile processes promote sustainable development. Sponsors, Developers and Users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely”

The business teams are not necessarily happy doing Scrum. The Business teams were used to pushing accountability conveniently on the technical team’s side under the umbrella of a few terms like “Managed Services” or “Managed Outcomes”. The IT companies also marketed these terms like “Managed Services” to create differentiators for themselves. The Business teams suddenly start feeling the heat when they are held accountable for ensuring that the delivery happens properly and making sure that they have to work with the technical teams on a day-to-day basis. In Scrum, we define the accountability “Product Owner” where participation from a Business perspective is extremely important. My recommendation that the Business Teams must be made to understand that Accountability cannot be outsourced and one cannot toss the accountability on the technical side. The business should be brought in sync with the Agile principle “Business People and Developers must work together daily throughout the project”. Scrum emphasizes that the right people take the right accountability and accountability cannot be outsourced.

The Business teams have conveniently understood that “Changes are free in Agile and Scrum”.  One has to understand that no changes are ever free. There is always a cost associated with a change. It is just differently looked at in Scrum. In Scrum, we tend to give importance to more valuable features. That means, the less valuable features go down the product backlog and may never get implemented. So, pushing the teams to do all requirements may not be a great idea, else the cost will obviously go up. My recommendation is to follow the Agile principle number 10 which says “Simplicity – The art of maximizing the work NOT done is essential”. The business has to know that nothing in this world is free and we need to learn to compromise less-value features for the more valuable ones

Conclusion

Scrum is not a magic-wand solution to solving all problems. In fact, if you do things incorrectly then the problems will multiply. It is better for organizations to understand Scrum and Agile correctly and apply only where required. “One-size-fits-all” is not a great approach.

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It is a common mis-conception that Scrum is only useful for small projects.

The real fact is that Scrum is used for solving complex problems. Complex problem is a problem where there are “unknowns” about requirements or the solution.

For solving complex problems, the decisions have to be taken based on what has been done in the recent past. It is extremely difficult to base your decisions based on long-term assumptions. This way of solving problems is called Empiricism or Empirical process control. Scrum is a framework based on Empirical Process Control Theory and therefore, used for solving complex problems.

A complex problem may be big or small. Therefore, the size of the problem has nothing to do with usage of Scrum or other frameworks/methods. A few examples of massive complex problems

• Merger or separation of a bank – When two banks merge or separate, there are a lot of unknown factors on the products in the resultant merged or separated bank. For example, one bank may be a risk-taking bank have an investment product based on a mix of equity, commodities, and derivatives, whereas, second bank might have a more conservative approach based on fixed-deposits, company-fixed-deposits of blue-chip companies and debt market involving only government securities. Now what would be the product applicable for the new merged bank? Would both products be offered by the new bank or would they be another combination product, or if the merged bank carries the image of the conservative bank then should it even offer the risky product? There are a lot of unknowns here. Would the image of a new merged bank be conservative or risk taking? Would the customers of the risk-taking bank accept the conservative products? Would the customers of the conservative bank accept the risky products or accept a risky profile of the new merged bank? This is an example of an unknown scenario. Unless things are tried out, there is no way you could take decisions. As a business, you may try various combinations, but the answers are possible only after trying different products and taking feedback from customers.
• Development of a medicine or vaccine for an unpredictable disease – The whole world grappled with the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The solution to solve this problem was two-fold – either develop a vaccine to prevent the disease or develop a medicine to kill the virus if anyone gets infected. Both were big unknowns. How the infections spread was unpredictable and also how the disease affects the patients was also unpredictable. Scientists and researchers had no option but to use the trial-and-error approach based on the past knowledge of various viruses. However, the majority of the decisions were based on what was the result of the trails done on various animals and eventually on human beings. Again a complex problem where decision can only be taken based on what has been done in the recent past. The decisions cannot be taken based on long-term planning.

Naturally, the approach for solving these kinds of problems is to shorten your planning horizons, try out things, if things do not work then try something else, if things work then try something else to make the solution stronger. So isn’t Scrum a way of solving such problems? Scrum shortens the planning horizon to maximum one month, then uses the inspect-adapt cycles (at the bare-minimum) through Sprint Reviews, Daily Scrums and Sprint Planning. The implementation of the Product Backlog is in-fact a way of adapting the requirements as you move forward and as more is known about the problem you are solving.

Therefore, it is a myth that Scrum is for small projects.

Conclusion

The size of the project has nothing to do with the use of Scrum or not.

• Scrum is based on Empirical Process Control Theory.  Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from experience and making decisions based on what is observed.
• Scrum combines four formal events (Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective within a containing event, the Sprint) and three Artifacts (Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog and Increment) to implement empiricism. These events work because they implement the empiricism pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation.
• Thus, Scrum is being used for solving complex problems (unknown requirements or unknown solutions) for small as well as large projects where constant inspection and adaptation is necessary and decisions have to be taken based on what is observed. Scrum Team observes what is happening based on the feedback received and adapts to the changes.

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Defined Processes

• Every piece of work is completely understood
• Defined process can be started and allowed to run with same results every time
• They provide repeatability and predictability

Empirical Processes

• Expects the unexpected
• Because the processes are imperfectly defined, generate unpredictable and unrepeatable output
• Control is exercised thru inspection and adaptation

Scrum and Empirical Process Control

• Scrum is founded on Empirical Process control theory (Empiricism)
• Empirical processes are the ones which are imperfectly defined and generate unpredictable and unrepeatable outputs
• Empirical model is made successful by frequently inspecting and adapting the processes

Three Pillars of Empirical Process Control

Transparency

• Significant aspects of process must be visible to those responsible for outcome
• Transparency requires those aspects be defined by a common standard so observers share a common understanding of what is being seen

Inspection

• Scrum users must frequently inspect Scrum artifacts and progress towards a Sprint goal
• Detect undesirable variances
• Inspections should NOT be too frequent

Adaptation

• The process or the material being processed must be adjusted
• Adjustment should be made as soon as possible and prevent further deviation

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