Is Scrum a chained Flow system?
Or — Prometheus Unbound
Boundaries, mental models, heuristics, cognitive biases, and more similar entities… all of which have an influence on how people operate in any given environment. Those are especially harmful to a business & work management. Why follow some dogmas and bet your money on them?
Scrum is dogmatic. Just one quote “The Scrum framework, as outlined herein, is immutable. While implementing only parts of Scrum is possible, the result is not Scrum. Scrum exists only in its entirety and functions well as a container for other techniques, methodologies, and practices.” — so states the Scrum Guide 2020.
And yet — what if?
What if one would just ask a simple question, possibly one of the most powerful ones…
Why?
Why is it so?
Is Scrum a bible? A cookbook?
Can Scrum proponents & creators provide mathematical proofs on its success?
Where is the scientific research that backs up the claims that Scrum states? Where in those research papers are references to Scrum? Where in Scrum are the references to those scientific research papers?
If they exist at all.
Maybe it’s like Plato’s cave. Those shadows are not reality. Once one gets rid of chains, both physical and mental…
Reality awaits.
Are you ready to question some dogmas and face the reality?
…
Let’s go.
Scrum has a set of cadence events that are being forced.
Planning — this and that long
Daily Scrum — this and that long
Review — this and that long
Retrospective — this and that long
Optional refinement — this and that long
I’d like to ask — what’s the value of such a forced cadence? Of course, such events have value by themselves, it’s just the forced cadence that is problematic.
Considering a 6+ months timeframe then the customer will optimistically get the results in the (total time) not the (total time-forced cadence events time) where those forced cadence events are just a toil and possibly an overhead.o aOptimize your costs?
The Customer is the King, right?
What’s the reason to force a cadence? It’s not an army, you’re not in the army now.
What if one would remove the time constraints and the forced cadence of events?
Possibly that one would un-shackle itself from unproven dogmas.
Run such events only when they make sense. After all, do you want to work more or deliver faster?
What is the reason for putting more pressure on yourself when the “Sprint” ends?
Would you rather focus on finishing the work that is relevant or fulfill some dogmatic prescribed rules?
How does it relate to achieving a stable & predictable flow of work in a system?
My reasoning is simple:
Dogmas are not logical. There’s no point in following dogmas if they do not serve a business. Some rules are to be broken to possibly disrupt the market. Just be mindful about breaking the rules of law, OK?
What would happen if one would unchain self from dogmatic prescriptions of this or that guides, manuals, bodies of knowledge & similar, and instead never stop asking simple questions such as:
- why?
- who?
- where?
- when?
- what?
- how?
I know my answers. I invite you to reflect on your questions & answers.
Everything flows… time, money, ideas, work, business…
It’s like water. Even the biggest stones, mountains & supposedly immovable structures will eventually be eroded or covered by water.
The same goes for Flow in my opinion.
There may be no logical point in trying to stop the flow of things. Unless you want to exploit some constraints as per the Theory of constraints as proposed by Eliyahu M. Goldratt. Of course, “your” constraints may be specific to “your” business, as every business is unique.
And here, Scrum actually may serve as such a constraint that serves your business flow.
Play smart, it’s your business.
