Tom Breur
3 January 2016
Scrum is great for
focusing on specific goals. The essence of a “sprint” is not a mad rush, but
rather a concerted, clearly directed attempt to reach the finish line in a
direct line, and in the shortest amount of time possible. That focus is on
“value” – the agile manifesto
states: “Our highest priority is to
satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.”
Agile is great for optimizing
what you are going to focus your effort on. That strength may also be its
greatest weakness, though. You optimize within a “box”, the context that you
are willing to consider. Conceptually, that is the value chain within your scope. Ideally we (should) look at
the broader picture, consider the entire
value chain that we are a part of.
Day to day practice tends
to be different though… And most of my concerns about Scrum seem to revolve
around optimizing for a box that is too small – that doesn’t encompass enough
of the value chain that you are a part of. People refer to their “job”, their
“task”, their “duties”, all expressions that hint at an industrial age mindset
of scientific
management. Our knowledge economy is based on efficiencies of scope, not scale.
That makes this industrial age mindset so dysfunctional.
Beginning small is great,
but by all means: think big!
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