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Guess what?

A purely “Bottom Up” approach will yield much the same results.

Huh?

You may be asking yourself.

Mike…. what can you mean by this statement?

Here is a typical scenario I see using the “Bottom Up” approach….

A developer (and by this I mean anyone in the role of a tester, business analyst, coder, architect, bla bla bla techno-type-person) goes to a conference and gets fired up about some new methodology or framework to use in their environment.

Or, maybe they do not have a “conference” budget and can squeak a book budget out of their current manager (or wow… even buy it themselves!). You can check out great Agile Book recommendations here.

The point is, this person gets excited.

About Scrum. Of course.

“Wow.” They think.

“We have been doing a lot of what Scrum says but not calling it Scrum.”

[RED LIGHTS AND BIG DANGER SIGNS GO OFF IN MY HEAD WHEN I HEAR THIS.....]

It usually means there is nothing in place at this time to help the organization and they are hacking their way through a problem and looking a some major death marches [THAT makes me sad].

Or.

“Wow. This Scrum stuff looks like it is a Silver Bullet and will fix all my problems.”

It does not.

Scrum is not a Silver Bullet.

In fact, Scrum starts amplifying the dysfunctional areas within your organization.

Ouch.

Really?

Yes.

See…. the “problems” that usually start surfacing “because” of Scrum have always been there. Scrum is actually just making them more visible — and sometimes painful.

So.

It is doing the job it is supposed to do.

Now.

How does an organization handle this amplification of problems and issues?

Hmmmm….

Notice I said, “Organization.”

If one team starts trying to do this on their own and “fight” the current organizational boundaries…. to quote my last statement….

[Political Correctness OFF]

You are screwed.

[Political Correctness ON]

It is unfortunate and I have seen this time and time again.

A team is successful at implementing Scrum.

And.

All of the sudden, the rest of the organization starts seeing that they are successful.

Yikes.

Sometimes too successful.

And.

They get taken out behind the shed and, how can I put this…. get shot.

The organization rejects it.

And Scrum “fails.”

Hmmm.

So what to do?

I am saying a pure “Top Down” OR “Bottom Up” approach are not usually successful.

The next comic will address how to actually use a combination of these in order to be successful at implementing Scrum within an organization.

There is hope.

It can be done.

It is done every day!

Gotta run!.Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.

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