Myth
Most organizations I visit are going through an Agile Transformation. they want to improve the time to market, improve customer satisfaction and increase employee happiness. Once the step is taken to start the Agile journey, Scrum is usually chosen as the framework to reach the organizational agility. This becomes the new Agile Way of Working and all teams have to comply and work Scrum.
Is this a good thing? is Scrum the answer to all your Agility problems? How can you as a Scrum Master explain Scrum is not the holy Grail to every organizational problem?
Complex domain
Scrum is founded on the empirical process to handle problems that are in a complex domain. This complexity is in the fact the world around us is moving very fast and we need to shorten our feedback loop in order to continue doing the right things. This means that what we know now might change based on new insights tomorrow. Requirements for our products is changing as new insights emerge.
Another aspect is the technology, or, the way we want to solve problems. the more demanding our customers, the more we need to seek in delivering things we do not yet know how to deliver. New technology is available on a daily bases and the problems we want to solve are getting more and more difficult.
Stacey Matrix
The Stacey Matrix was developed and published by Ralph Douglas Stacey. It is designed to help understand the factors that contribute to the complexity and choose the best management actions to address different degrees of complexity. It was not specifically designed to address project delivery but is just as relevant to that area as any other. (more info on Stacey matrix can be found https://www.praxisframework.org/en/library/stacey-matrix )
So when to Scrum?
Scrum is a framework for developing, delivering, and sustaining complex products
Scrum Guide 2017
So basically, if you have a product or a project, and more is unknown than known, the empirical approach in Scrum will be very valuable for you. If more is known than unknown, you might find more value in standardized processes and plannable approach.
I’m curious about your view. Leave a comment and have a discussion so that we can unleash organizational agility together
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