Step 1. Lead from the front using the leader part of servant leader. Use this when the team is lost, going off the rails or about to run back into the burning barn of traditional project management.  As soon as the team gets their bearings, starts being honest with themselves, or chooses not to get burned again, move immediately one step back and to the side.

Step 2. Coach from the side. Be there on the sideline giving support, offering suggestions and providing guidance. Shift to Socratic method.  Once the team gets their confidence back, take another step back, moving behind the team.

Step 3.  Mentor from the rear.  look for patterns, learn how the team(s) are moving ahead through their challenges so you can lead them when they ask for help.  Remember you are now a firemen always ready to go when the team rings the bell.  When you get to the fire you’ll know which steps to take.

Purists are all about what Ken said 10+ years ago. They represent the once radical movement that launched Scrum. Problem is that even Ken doesn’t practice what he advocated in “the day”. Take a look at this list of early terminology.

Scrums – is it still only 30 calendar days long?

Do retros and sprint planning meetings have single required time boxes?

Is this the correct Sprint Backlog: “A list of tasks that defines a Team’s work for a Sprint. The list emerges during the Sprint. Each task identifies those responsible for doing the work and the estimated amount of work remaining on the task on any given day during the Sprint.”?

Done was defined as “Complete as mutually agreed to by all parties and that conforms to an organization’s standards, conventions, and guidelines. When something is reported as ‘done’ at the Daily Scrum, or demonstrated as ‘done’ at the Sprint Review meeting, it must confirm to this agreed definition.”

The funniest thing is that the “Sprint” was called an iteration.

Posers – This could be the fastest growing camp in Scrum. Here the goal is to take the sizzle and the visibility of Scrum, label it as Agile, then demonstrate that by relabeling the processes in their traditional methodologies you can be AGILE/SCRUM, improve your able to be right, and still use the same insufficient facts. The bonus value in joining this camp is that you don’t have to change how you operate. Unfortunately, many of these campers truly think they are the next generation as they take the names, the ceremonies, and the cache, of Scrum and Agile values and believe these will enhance existing ways to deliver functions and activities.  Somewhere along the line what “value” stood for shifted away from what stakeholders and customers want and back to how well the project is run. 

Finally the Pragmatists.  This camp sits between the Purists and the Posers.  These scrumsters practice Scrum because it creates a transparency that encourages continuous improvement as it  emerges. This camp focuses on exploring what they can learn about improving the way they deliver value. Scrum is used as a framework reflecting what an organization does to inhibit its ability to deliver value to their stakeholders and customers. Pragmatists use Agile Tenets and Principles to incrementally and pragmatically find ways to improve what they are doing and how to better deliver value. 

Pragmatists are easy to identify. They learn their skills, keep up and share what they have learned, and use the Agile Manifesto and Principles to measure how well their implementation of the Scrum Framework is improving the way value is delivered.

 So, which camp do you want to part of?

They were ripped that such an important game as American Football was led by an obviously inferior individual.  The one person on the team with a Quarter of a Back.  Insane! they cried, questioning the competency of our species – or at least our country – to be nominated for membership in the great intergalatic sports community.

What was  the problem with us, they demanded, to have a person with a full back or even one with a half back on the field and to still insist on fololowing the person with the least capability to remain in a vertical position.    It was not just their concern either. They let it slip that our solar system was on the short list to be converted into a rest area for the new hyper way.

I felt their minds had not been quite fried enough, so I told them about a software team being led by a ScrumMaster who  had only two days of training.  I shouldn’t have done that I guess, the gelatin-like masses where the voices seemed to come from went solid, turned ocre and started to emit a slow whiny sigh.

I took pity and explained to them that the name ScrumMaster was just like the name quarterback -  two great examples of the stupid way we earthlings label important roles in our organizations.  I went on to explain that these names were the names of positions people had, and did not reflect their competency or limitations in doing their job.  I then told them of other names in sports like gully foot and shortstop.  In addition I mentioned Project Manager and Assistant associate deputy to the second vice president for paper disposal.

This seemed to get them very excited and confused, then very happy.  So happy they forgot to take me with them and put probes in me.

It turns out the combination of the names we give roles and how we make such a big deal of some stupid names and say nothing about others will be the next season’s big hit. These two are setting up galaxy wide viewing licenses of the biggest show in all of time and space. A reality show that will document that Homer Simpson (a huge name in the Galaxy) is the smartest person on earth.

“Al” was right on the money.  In a traditional or even many agile-lite environments stories are planned, tasks created and – at the very end of the sprint (if you are lucky) the test task is there.  Yup.  Here comes the latest in cool code.

It is like you build a car got it ready to roll and took it to the car wash.  When it comes out the other end you are really upset because it is full of water, soap, and all the pizza bones, old soda bottles, and that missing fooz ball are floating around in the  passenger compartment.  Jeez those clowns at the car wash should have been more careful.  Didn’t they see the windows were mocks, the roof was a shell, I mean all that was need was to clean the three little bugs off the windscreen and fine tune the horn.

In a more mature agile shop there would have been an acceptance requirement that the code had to be able to go through the car wash.  But even that level of sophistication will fail because it lacks the clarity of why it has to go through and most of all what it should look like after it is done.  three fourths of this car came out the other end, the wheels, rims, and interior were lost, and the team was incensed they could get the credit for the work that past. – all because the clowns at the car wash won’t take a broader view of the acceptance criteria – I mean come on dude, Most of it got through.

Then there is the business attitude toward the car wash employees.  The dudes with the rags get labeled surly, arrogant, and picky as the dickens when it comes to NOT doing somethings.  Business wants a good job for as little as they can pay for.  Look is it too much to ask for a clean car, vacuumed mats, windows that shine, as well as the removal of the unknown projectiles lodged in the mini-grill of the sub woofers stored in the trunk?  No I am not going to pay all that money for a detailing job so the car looks as good as new.  I just want to have it look that way for no additional cost.  And while you are at it, balance the engine, tune the suspension, lube it and put in the best oil and filter you can.

So thanks big Al.  We are all going to start moving to the tune.

First there is MEI which means Manufacturing End Item and represents all the components needed to make the final assembly of what you the customer order. Second there is the CEI or customer end item which is what you buy. These two terms are core to the shopping on the web. When you select the stuff you want on your, iPhones,  personalized bathrooms, or your next auto all work because of MEI and CEI.  The choices you have for building your computer, like disks, and memory, different optical drives not to mention the skins you can wrap them in all reflect MEI’s or Manufacturing End Items. They can be combined because of an extensive Quality integration effort that assures all the bits do fit and will work properly. When they are stuck together they fill your order which defines DONE for your Customer End Item or CEI. So having multiple definitions of DONE can actually add value, as long as you pay attention to the quality needed to integrate all the parts at the end.

Don’t worry, manufacturing has kept up with the times as more and more manufacturing has taken to Modular Manufacturing. In fact in this global economy entire manufacturing systems are designed to be modular so that not only the parts are broken into smaller and smaller levels of DONE but so are the manufacturing steps. For those interested see “A hybrid methodology for synthesis of Petri net models for manufacturing systems”(http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=143353). So in a very real sense the high tech geek world we live in is about three generations behind the guys on the factory floor because most of what they are doing to determine discrete points of Done is to base it on measurable value Pretty cool huh?  Oh yeah they have been using some form of a task board and dependent demand planning  in a pull mode (AKA Kanban) for about 500 years.

Now to make this happen each step has its own QA, QC and Test criteria, patterns and harnesses. This means that if someone down stream figures a way to get folks to want people a choice in the type of metal used in their iPhone 8 antenna, the manufacturing step that makes the antenna will be ready to provision the web page where people choose the metal for the antenna – and the time to market will be the speed at which you can key in the changes to the web page.

So how close are we – software – are becoming the choke point in this whole innovation stream? We could be, if we insist on  sticking with what we are comfortable and wait to the end of the cycle to get the work tested and then have problems logged; wait until the next meeting to get needed changes through some form of CCB; wait for an optimally utilized Product Owner to have time to approve the work, and then have to wait in line while an understaffed and over committed QA group hand crafts test cases 12 timezones away to start this cycle all over again.

If however we develop defined criteria for each step of the process and, like the modular manufacturing world, base our breakdown on what is valuable to the ‘on-line’ shopper mindset.  Who knows what could happen?  Perhaps discussion that don’t get into what done is.

For example, the most recent class was very intense with the team asking me some really hard and crucial questions.  Then they dropped the bomb. “Hey Mike, you act like Scrum is a Silver Bullet.” Arghhh! I HATE THAT. I don’t know how many times people get that impression and how many times I have repeated the litany, “Scrum doesn’t solve anything it shows you what is happening in your organization”.  Well not this time. What jumped from my lips was “Scrum is Not a silver bullet, Scrum is a silver mirror!”.

The next day, one of the class members reported out that my ‘catch phrase’ had really worked.

Huh? The class was right behind me in asking for an explanation.

It seems he left the class last night and went back to work (we are such a bunch of OCD wonks) where is boss was talking about Scrum not being the Silver bullet he, the boss, had expected. Our teammate then popped the phrase “Scrum is Not a silver bullet, it is a silver mirror!”. This stopped the boss in his tracks as he realized that Scrum was just that, a high definition reflection of all the things that were actually going on. And if memory serves the attendee went on to say the conversation went from Scrum not meeting expectations to what was coming off the mirror.

The class, being a great one, started kicking this around. One of the comments emerged from someone saying “Talk to the hand” and became “talk to the silver mirror in my hand”.

Maybe a good ScrumMaster is a person who can have people talk to the mirror in their hand.

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”

It struck me it was ‘the’ perfect story. It has a role, action that had to be taken, and a goal.  But most of all it had a very tangible, clear, and explicitly well defined definition of DONE – “returning him safely to the earth.” What a story!  What an Epic! What a way to get a nation – a world – to focus.   But it wasn’t a user story – it had this timeboxing clause,”before this decade is out,” that started the clock ticking.

I refer to it as a Focus Story. It serves as the transforming agent changing a poetic visiony user story into a ‘Mission Statement” and a Commander’s Intent”. With it in place, at the top of Product Vision, enough guide rails are in place to make reasonable initial roadmaps, release plans, prioritization criteria, and definitions of done.  But most of all we have a means to understand core values criteria “safely to the earth”.

We also have triggers to inform us when we are losing focus –  Meetings get longer, Done isn’t understood. Pieces don’t fit and the conventional mindset you have been struggling to win over sighs and goes back to its safe place of waiting for the fad to die.  When these show up it is time to revisit the focus story and build a bigger focus or wrap up what you are doing.  Otherwise you risk having “O”rings show up on your Columbia launch.  Nobody wants to be part of that type of bad day.

I have been meaning to share this for a while.

Holding team meetings where the team members are not in the same place is not fun, and it becomes less fun the more distributed the team becomes. The following rules of thumb came about when I had to run teams of consultants where no one was in the same place and the places they were ranged from their office to their home or car, or airport lounge, or even their bed when they were in on the other side of the world.
The first thing we noticed is that a little more structure and role definition was required so that people could better self herd themselves

Roles
a. ScrumMaster run the scrum, keep time. Must have good phone that does not add noise to the line

b. Scribe take down key points (usually this person was the one in the office or someplace where there was a horizontal writing space and enough quiet to concentrate)

c. TeamMember person who kept their phone on mute unless given the ‘stick to talk’

The second difference is the structure needed a protocol to insure everyone could participate. This led to the following team driven agreements on the Scrum. The most important of which is the timebox with a Max time of 15 minutes to complete the following:

Rules

1. No speaker phones. These are great for everyone sitting together but terrible to listen to.
2. All actions are time boxed
3. First activity is for each team member to answer the questions three with no interruptions (15 secs max per task)
4. Team members keep their questions, comments, and what-have-you on stickies
5. ScrumMaster reports out all actions on blocks, and any new information
6. At the end of the questions 3 the ScrumMaster polls each person for any questions Team members tear up any duplicate stickies
7. Open Microphone – general discussion on each thread – 1 minute max for each comment
8. Synch questions – questions designed to clarify any stray points – 30 sec
9. Take aways and off line – people who want to dive on a point set up a time to set it up and do it, no calendar trolling allowed on line.
10. Scribe time – scribe gets to set the noodles in a row and send out email
11. ScrumMaster Sums up. Sum up includes acknowledging blocks, key linkups, and next meeting time.
12. ScrumMaster asks “What did I miss?” and team memebers fill in holes and then concurs with summary.
13. ScrumMaster then announces “SCRUM Over, Open Microphone for as long as people want it.”

Things to improve this

Team writes up their questions three and sends to Scribe before meeting. Scribe then cuts and pastes into a single email and sends to team during meeting. Teammember still reports them on line.

Here is what I measure.

As a Trainer I measure my coaching ability by the answering these questions.

1. Are the DOERS (developers, architects, testers, leads) taking responsibility for what they do and do not do and are they extending that expectation to those groups they work with?
2. Is there a simple measure of DONE and NOT DONE and is it constantly being inspected, refined and adapted to better meet the goals of the organization?
3. Do Product Owners, Stakeholders, business types increasingly take ownership of the value decisions?
4. Do the process junkies and the PowerPoint wizards become engeaged in a way that increases the ability of the organization to deliver value early?
5. Do Agile practices expand so that people in Operations, Support, Help Desks, Maintenance have a scrum where their work is on a Taskboard and all their work is recognized for the value it provides?

As a Coach I measure my training skills by answering these questions.

1. Do the team members and the stakeholders understand the terms and the actions that go along with them?
2. Do they look for ways to exploit understanding of Agile in the organization by adapting and inspecting what they do?
3. Does the stakeholder community increase its attendance at reviews, scrums, to listen and transparently evaluate what is being done?
4. Do the people in the different roles respect their work, look for ways to improve and most of all encourage and mind each other?
5. Am I as a Coach/Trainer moved to the rear of the conversation Does the team talk to each other and not to the ScrumMaster?
6. Is the Product Owner called on to do their job?

SO If I have one metric that says I have been ‘successful’ it is simply that no matter how hard the traditionalist try to stamp out Agile behavior, Scrums become a way of life.  Is that Scrum Butt -yeah – so what.

In the end, the only Butt in question is the traditionalist mind that won’t change.

oh yeah, check your zipper.