This week we conclude our first “series” of cartoons. If this is your first visit, please check out episode #1 and episode #2 before continuing… it may add a bit of context behind what I am about to tell you next.

Sit down.

And listen. This is important.

Really (smile).

If you are on a Scrum Team, either as the ScrumMaster, Product Owner, or Team Member and are looking around your team room today asking yourself, “Why the heck are we using Scrum on this project,” you are not alone.

It turns out that the majority of projects that start using Scrum actually fail.

Wow.

This supports my statement that Scrum is not a “Silver Bullet” for software development.

If your team is not working out…. I would not recommend doing what our intrepid ScrumMaster above is saying to the team, because the response will probably be much the same.

Gulp.

So what the heck do you do?

Try using Scrum.

If things are not going well, make sure you are following “the basics” of Scrum. It is not Rocket Science.

Take a look around this site and do some research on the Internet — there is a lot out there to help you.

However.

And this is a big one.

If it is not working, STOP calling it Scrum and move on.

If not, you can pretty much guarantee yourself and the team of dying a slow, iterative, and incremental death march.

Do you understand the implications of the above statement?

Really?

Gotta run….

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!

Knowing he had only one question to ask of the one who knows all, he started to feel a bit of pressure.

One question.

Only.

One.

Phew.

The pressure was on.

What question would he ask?

Amazing at how sometimes life truly imitate art (or, in our case, being a ScrumMaster). One week ago this evening I was climbing to the top of a mountain retreat. Instead of heading there to learn something, I was going to teach a two day Certified ScrumMaster Workshop. By the end of the week, it was I who had learned the most (although I am sure the students of this class walked away with some cool new insights about Scrum and how it applies in the real world!).

So.

Back to the question. It actually is one I have been pondering for a few weeks.

“What if a team REJECTS Scrum?”

I have had a lot of experience with organizations (who are made up of many teams — using Scrum and not) implementing Scrum.

And.

I have had to get used to the idea — based on experience — that not all organizations, or teams, actually DO successfully implement Scrum.

Scrum is not that “Silver Bullet” I kept saying to people that is was not.

And it is not.

Even to “me” as a ScrumMaster.

So Ken Schwaber and I had a conversation (it was brief…. via email… not me actually having to climb to the top of a mountain to speak with him (smile)).

Am I the only ScrumMaster experiencing this trend?

Could it just be *me*, I wondered?

Am I really worthy of coaching other ScrumMaster’s and their teams who are implementing Scrum today — and in the future?

And I found out something amazing.

Only about one out of four teams are successful implementing Scrum.

25%.

“Wow,” I thought.

This fact — even if it is based just on experience from others in the industry — hit me like a ton of bricks (this means it made a big impression on me, oh readers not from the USA).

Personally I am seeing better than this twenty-five percent success rate with Scrum. Some organizations (remember, who are made up of teams) are much higher than this (that is, they really are successful using this framework!).

And then I realized.

It probably has *nothing* to do with me or my skills as a ScrumMaster.

Stop and think about this.

I did.

And it made me feel very humbled.

Silence.

So now I am faced with the fact that, “OK. The majority of teams fail using Scrum.”

Really.

And the other 75% will start to go back to their, “Old Habits.”

Which means most will go back and “die” what is being called an, “…. iterative and incremental death march.”

Think about that statement.

And what it means to you, as a ScrumMaster (or a member of a Scrum Team).

And what it means to your Scrum Team as a whole.

And then, what it means to your organization.

Sometimes, no matter what *you* personally do — no matter how hard you try — Scrum will fail.

OK… so “Scrum” will not “fail.”

The team, or organization, will not be able to handle what Scrum exposes on a daily basis. And this is a hard thing to swallow (err…. let me think…. how about “hard to understand and accept”).

So.

As a ScrumMaster…. you need to deal with the fact — and accept this as a fact — that no matter what you do, and no matter how well you do it…. things will most likely blow up within an organization and they will not continue using Scrum.

They will go back to the old habits I have been writing about and talking about for years. Because sometimes it is just easier than facing the truth and working to improve yourself as a team or organization.

The truth hurts.

Brutally.

Yikes.

Is this something as a ScrumMaster you are able to accept?

And move on?

Something to think about for next week’s final installment of this series.

What *do* you do if your team is not succeeding with Scrum?

Or, what if your Scrum Team is succeeding and your organization is rejecting it?

Think about it.

Seriously.

Because.

The majority of time, Scrum does not work in an organization.

More next week.

Gotta run….

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!

Sometimes the ScrumMaster stops working with the team. To go learn some new things. While I was “gone” — i did send information as I learned it. Both the good and bad.

So, while, in reality I have spent last week in Kyiv and this week I will be in Hungary…. I want to take this week to introduce the first of a three part series.

This is something that has been eating at me (bugging the heck out of me) (keeping me up at night) (worrying about) (etc.)……..

Unbeknownst to the Scrum Team in this cartoon, our ScrumMaster has quietly faded from the team room in order to go get some help.

Along the way, the people he went to get more help kept telling him to go to other places.

Eventually, our intrepid ScrumMaster wound up at a very unusual place — both physically and in his own personal and professional life.

Knowing he had only one question to ask of the one who knows all, he started to feel a bit of pressure.

One question.

Only.

One.

Phew.

The pressure is on.

What question will he ask?

Got it.

And we will address it next week!

Gotta run….

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!

Only one person in the world can say that and get away with it (most of the time). His name is Ken Schwaber, one of the founders of Scrum. Funny thing is, he gets paid to give you this kind of advice.

Wow. What a world we live in.

[Full Disclosure ON]

I have worked with Ken in the past and he has personally given me the “Certified Scrum Trainer“ label. Any references to him in this posting will be in the name of fun, and I hope you (and ummmmm Ken) see the humor in it all. The example used in the cartoon above is one Ken uses in various training and presentation materials on a regular basis. Tony and I took some artistic license on the topic and produced what you see here.

[Ahh shoot… everything I say here is in full disclosure, so I cannot turn it OFF]

Have you ever really wondered how Scrum gets started in an organization? I mean reallllllllllllly….

It is usually one of two ways, and today I will write about one of them…

A Senior Chicken meets someone on a plane or hears about it at a conference.

There. That’s all. Strange?

It is that easy. Wow. The secret is out.

Darn. Kinda anti-climactic, huh?

Well, for those of you looking for more information about what happens after this initial introduction, please read on. For those of you who just want to send the comic strip to your friends, please go for it and thanks for reading this far (let me know who you are emailing about this, I’d love to hear)!

Still with me? Cool. I love the smart ones who stick around. Thanks by the way.

OK… so let’s assume a CxO (for “x” substitute E, I, T, or any other acronym that is used in your organization) gets off the plane after hearing about how this Silver Bullet can help save the organization. Upon return to the office (or maybe while surfing the net in their stretch limo), they google “Scrum Home Page”. The cool thing is now I am on the first page for that search, something the CxO types love (as I am also finding out). O… go back a few sentences… Scrum, as I hope you have learned, is not a Silver Bullet by the way.

After reading some great sound bites on Scrum, the CxO Chicken is now sufficiently buzzword compliant and able to bamboozle his or her peers with this newfound language. In addition to being able to bamboozle peers, the CxO Chicken then starts talking about it at staff meetings with direct reports. Finally, after sometimes eleven “levels” down, some line manager receives a corporate directive that “you will use this Scrum thing” on some projects. Now [some] Line Manager Chicken has done the same thing as CxO chicken (become buzzword compliant).

Usually by now a call goes out to other line manager peers (sometimes outside their own organizations) asking for people to give them leads on people to help. Calls to recruiters — who are most of the time not buzzword compliant and don’t care about even getting there — ensue and sometimes calls come directly to people like me. The different Recruiter Chickens (remember, their “stake” is now tied directly to placing a head, any head sometimes (don’t get me started sigh) look on the web for Scrum and usually finds the same list of “Certified Scrum Masters” online.

Mental note // golden nugget of information included here (this alone is worth the price of this posting!):

… having a label of “Certified Scrum Master” does not make a person an “expert” at this.

This label means that a person has gone through a two day course (I call it a workshop) and has successfully not been booted out of it (by reading email, pissing people off, or whatever).

Now, of course, this course is important. I teach it and certify people pretty regularly, so I do believe it is a great first step in the journey.

But remember, look out for people preaching that this is a silver bullet or a total Scrum zealot.

Do your due diligence. Talk to people. Stay leery of people I affectionately call “Sales-Holes” (a story for another day).

Contact me for recommendations; I have worked with great and not-so-good Scrum Masters. It truly is a small world.

Now, assume that an experienced external Certified Scrum Master has been found. Or, as more often happens, some poor schmoe (a PMI-Certified-Project-Manager-Newbie) is sent to a CSM Course. Either way (um, think about what way you’d like to do this!), assume that a Certified Scrum Master is available to you.

Say this to yourself in your best Yoda voice: “Start not without one, young Jedi.” Do it. Really. In the Yoda voice. Now stop laughing and get back to reading this….

Ig, this is getting kind of long already, and there is so much more to write on this topic.

OK… for now… take a deep breat…. and LISTEN to me as I WRITE this and you READ this…. (did you yawn?)…

DO NOT start five, fifteen, or fifty projects at once. You will cause much pain and Scrum will die on the vine. Trust me.

“But Mike….” some people say to me, “WE are different.”

Of course you are different. Duh. But last I checked, we are all human (and if a non-human is reading this, let me know).

But, LISTEN to me… start with ONE project with your “A” players and start tasting success. The reason for the pilot, and the main reason for any pilot, is to work out the kinks in the process — ANY process.

This is where an experienced Certified Scrum Master can help.

Because guess what… Scrum has a lot less to do with techno-bla-bla than it does dealing with people. Real people. On a daily basis.

More on that at another time.

Gotta run…

Please send comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, or whatever here. You can also enter The Forum to discuss this cartoon and other Scrum topics. Thank you!