Tuesday, 23 September 2014

The world is going agile. Are you?

The world is going agile. Are you?
In the face of the global economic turbulence, organizations are forced to become nimble and agile so that they can respond to market changes quickly. Over the last few years, many organizations have adopted adaptive project management methods like Agile to increase the efficiency of their project management function. Among the different Agile frameworks, Scrum in particular has become extremely popular in most of the organizations.
While more and more organizations are adopting Scrum as their preferred framework for managing projects, they need to overcome the initial challenges in the transition process. As with any change, there will be some resistance during the transition to Scrum. Middle managers will typically fear their loss of role or loss of authority. They may not understand their new role or how they contribute to the success of the team. People who are invested in the old methodology will also typically resist the change. These people may be systems engineers or other related positions that fear losing their role as a result of changing to Scrum.
The two basic methods of transitioning to Scrum are top down and bottom up. In top down, the transition is widely communicated. There is an effort to provide education about the change to everyone involved. This communication can be a source of change resistance. The other possibility is to change things gradually within the organizational culture. Then, the transition to Scrum will be incremental.
Another aspect of transition to consider is how much of the organization requires a transition to Scrum methods. The entire organization could be transitioned at the same time. However, this method is more susceptible to problems that may result in interrupting profit generating activities. Therefore, it is more advisable to transition different divisions in an iterative fashion to reduce risk and to provide lessons learned for future iterations.
For a start-up organization or who has a fairly clean slate, it is easy for them to adopt Scrum. However, if your organization is used to traditional project management environment, there is no doubt that you will face lot of challenges at the beginning.  It is a good idea to hire some Scrum Experts to help you in the transition process. Also, training plays a pivotal role here. It is important to train your whole project team before you start using Scrum. There are many professional training organizations who offer Scrum training around the globe. Also, there are many training programs which are associated with some recognized Scrum certifications. As a matter of fact, many organizations prefer these training programs because of several reasons – 1) employees get trained in Scrum, 2) employees can earn a professional certification at the end of the training program (of course after taking the certification exam) which in turn increases the motivation of employees, 3) certification exams also help organizations to measure the effectiveness of the training program and employee performance in a more tangible manner.
If you are trying to implement Scrum and are facing issues which seem to be uphill, do not give up quickly as the benefits of implementing Scrum is far-fetched than the initial challenges.

 To know more click on: http://www.scrumstudy.com/blog/the-world-is-going-agile-are-you/

Thursday, 4 September 2014

Self-organizing and meddling Stakeholders

Any Scrum Master worth his Scrum Master certification believes that all humans are enthusiastic and seek to receive greater duty. So, they deliver much greater value when self-organized. This self-organization is what created us from single celled beings. A Scrum Master brings working deliverables sooner and makes available more precise predictions of timetable and budget compared to traditional waterfall Project Managers. Under Scrum, if we plan a ten-month project and divide the effort into twenty, fortnight sprints;  at the end of sprint #5 (25 % into the project), we would have completed five iterations of development. In the equivalent period a waterfall project would have generated a stack of specifications and authorization forms, and Scrum would have created five packages of confirmed, shippable deliverable. All this is majorly because the Scrum team feels empowered.
One important aspect that no scrum master certification training deals with. It is about managing the Stakeholder participation. External stakeholders have a completely valid interest in the success of a project and conversely, the project team cannot work effectively without their contributions. Even if Scrum team members know how to outline and deliver project features, useful deliverables cannot be developed without the involvement of the executives, managers, and the other stakeholders that the team serves. The irony is that most senior folk, especially in our country are overeager to “leave their mark”. In their over eagerness, the following behavior is exhibited.
  • Statements like “This is how we do it Here!” are heard
  • External stakeholders talk in the daily standup meetings
  • Status information demanded outside Sprint Planning Meetings
  • Scrum Masters, Product Owners or Project Sponsors receive requests from their superiors to “Correctly” guide the Scrum team
Because of this distraction, the Scrum Master is not concentrating 100 percent on team and organizational obstructions and processes. Product backlog wastes away and/or is passed over. If the product owner is coerced by these stakeholders, features get selected or priorities substituted outside of sprint planning meetings ignoring the backlog. The Product Owner may start imposing improper assessments regarding risk.

While inappropriate outside influence can be exerted at any point in a sprint, it is most visible when external stakeholders over participate in daily project activities, especially the daily standup meetings. This is also the place where the Scrum master can most effectively stage an intervention by consistently putting into effect the “Silence rule” for external Stakeholders: Undeniably, there may be that one justified remark that gets lost. But it will lead to others and then there will be no easy place to draw the line. Again, we should remember that we are dealing with superiors who have learnt to intimidate subordinates to get their obedience. Scrum masters can also Conduct Scrum training to External Stakeholders in part start of a project and try to convince the Stakeholders why their comments would be counterproductive.