March 24th, 2009
Other Voices #1 — This is not like That
This post is the first in a series of guest articles I have requested from friends and colleagues in the general Agile field, and which will appear on this blog with the prefix ‘Other Voices’. The general theme of the Agile Thoughts blog is one of challenging assumptions, and sometimes throwing down gauntlets. The guest articles that appear in this series will continue that same focus. In this article Lyssa Adkins addresses our tendency to map new ideas to old, and suggests this may not be the best road to truly embracing Scrum.
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“…we all safely interpret dangerous things in ways that don’t require us to change our lives.” — Orson Scott Card
I was honored to co-facilitate an Introduction to Scrum session recently for sixty-eight Project Management Institute (PMI) folks, who were all willing and open-minded. Even the ones I had known in past years who were not so open minded to Scrum raised their hands high and proud when asked, “Who is excited to try this in their work?” Within an hour of starting the session, though, I was compelled to stop it. My co-facilitator was introducing the group to Scrum and hands were popping up everywhere. The questions being asked were all some version of “How does this match what I already know?” “So, the product backlog is your requirements document, right?” “You can’t really expect people to sit together. That would never fly where I work.” “I just don’t get what you do without a plan. How will people know what to do everyday?”
When I stopped the group, I asked that they give themselves the gift of learning something new without forcing it into the categories already in their heads. “Perhaps,” I said, “just perhaps you will need new categories to understand what’s being given to you. So rest for now and learn Scrum for the sake of learning Scrum – without relating it to plan-driven project management, without worrying about whether or not it will work in your current situation.”
As I peruse the submissions for the Agile 2009 conference, I see the same tendency in the community as a whole. It’s a fervent desire to map Scrum to something else, something more familiar and, therefore, at least seemingly safer. PMBOK, CMMI, Lean, Kanban, the list goes on.
As the Orson Scott Card quote says, there is something in us that desperately wants to “safely interpret dangerous things in ways that don’t require us to change our lives.” Is Scrum dangerous that way? Absolutely. If you are doing Scrum well it will require you to change your life. You will have to give away your belief that having a checklist makes things run smoothly. You will have to stop chasing the perfect process and, instead, start cultivating your ability to trust the resourcefulness of others. You will cease using line items checked off on a plan as your measure of value. You will face your fears, all of them, about yourself and other people. You will stop making progress and start making products.
If you must map Scrum to something you already know, go ahead. Use that door to come to Scrum if that’s what makes sense to you. Heck, for PMBOK, you don’t even need to do it yourself. Michele Sliger and Stacia Broderick have done a fine job of it for you [ref]. If you come through that door though, don’t stop just inside the foyer. Keep moving. Immediately seek out people who allowed their brains and hearts to expand when they learned about Scrum and go learn from them. Allow the simplicity and depth of Scrum to rock your world and open your mind up to news ways of being in the workplace and getting work done, together. Try on some of the radical practices recommended by good Scrum coaches, even if you think, “Oh, no. I could never…” The practice you have that reaction to is the one you need most. So, do it. Let the dangerous thing into your life and allow it to change you. It’s absolutely for the better.
© Lyssa Adkins, 2009
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Lyssa Adkins is a personal coach, a Certified Scrum Trainer and a PMP. She authors the excellent cricketwing blog and is the the creator of the well-respected and oft-cited YouTube video The Road from Project Manager to Agile Coach. Lyssa presents regularly at Agile and Scrum conferences and gatherings, and tends to make friends wherever she goes — look out for her on your Agile journey 
March 24th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Well said Lyssa. As I help many former PMI based project managers I see the same behaviors.
March 24th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Beautifully expressed Lyssa. I couldn’t agree more…as a former PM turned Agile coach, I feel that “danger” often. It’s a change…and that’s always a bit scary, but it sure is rewarding to dance across the danger line!
March 24th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Excellent and valid points. I think it’s somewhat human nature, though, to try to fit new ideas within the context of things you already know. Not doing so is very difficult, and may even be beyond a majority of people out there. And even if you can personally make this leap, most of us have deal with the reality of our work environments — when selling Scrum to my company executive, for example, I had to provide some context around what it means and how it will be different, so I have map new ideas to old in order to even consider moving towards Scrum.
Shaking off one’s preconceptions, one’s roots in old ideas and ways of thinking, is an incredibly challenging task. I think that is part of the journey an open-minded person can take with Scrum and agile. It’s difficult to do at the start, though.
March 24th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Alex:
Yes, it is a challenge for ourselves and when working with others. And even more of a challenge at the start, as you say. The trick is to keep moving, Alex. Walk through the foyer and into the first room that attracts your eye. The Scrum “house” is an architectural wonder to behold with treasures in every nook and cranny.
Keep learning and you’ll do just fine. You’ll also find ways to get past the “that’s the way it is” blues.
Lyssa
March 28th, 2009 at 4:55 am
Well said. Associative thinking (mapping something new to something you already know) is one of the biggest barriers to learning something new. It isn’t surprising when you stop and think about it. But I find that this is really common when I train groups, particularly in the corporate world.