Welcome back to another week at www.implementingscrum.com. The blog entry this week has been brewing for a while, and I’d like to thank John S [you know who you are] for the idea of linking this topic to Oz.The topic of the week is Compliance.

And no, I am not going to tell Scrum Teams to “just ignore it, and it will go away.”

But I am going to challenge the system. At least a little bit (smile).

Before delving into this further.

Think about the importance of customers.

Really think about this.

Not “IT” versus “Business” or whatever you call it internally… but REAL customers who PAY your company REAL money.

In the beginning, as either an entrepreneur, recent university graduate, or single person…. you were accountable to basically you. And oh, the IRS (or whoever collects taxes). And maybe a puppy. When you delivered services you were paid.

Then…

You started growing. Your company added people. You were responsible for payroll — making sure your employees received a regular paycheck; and it had to clear. Or you got married (or had a civil union if it is legal where you live). Your puppy starting growing up.

Then, one day, you decided to take the company public. Or have kids. Your puppy turned into an adult dog.

All of the sudden, you look for your customer — remember, the people that actually PAY you for services rendered — and see that now you have a lot of oversight.

From “stake holders.” Be it the IRS, your board of directors, your shareholders, your clients, you internal teams, bla bla bla.

Where the hell did your customers go in all of this. Remember…. little Joe (or Jane) customer who actually pays the bills for all this new overhead? Hmmm… people lost sight.

Empires started to grow.

People — not resources (smile John) — that are paid (ultimately by a customer who uses your services and could give a rats ass about what happens behind the scenes) start building empires. And this is not just with public companies (sad, but true, and I have been there).

One of the many empires that emerge is something called “Compliance.”

There job is to create and publish policies, procedures, standards, guidelines…. bla bla bla. Your customers (who pay you) do not care.

Ah.

But another empire — the auditors — who compliance can then “blame” start making sure you are following ALL of the darn things that they (compliance) created.

This, my dear reader, is the agile police.

And, breath here….

It is a cost of doing business.

That being said, remember that you can be 100% compliant. And have no customers. Then what?

But… until that message gets across within your organization, here are a few tips:

1) Become compliant.

2) Stay compliant.

3) Work with compliance.

4) THEN… start questioning compliance.

I know. I know.

Compliance is important.

Very important.

Is it worth going out of business to be “compliant”?

I will leave you with this.

For now.

Gotta run…

Oh…. want to hear the Podcast of this entry? Click The Podcast.

Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here.

You can also enter The Forum to discuss this entry and other Scrum topics. Thank you!