I don’t care about Scrum 🤷♀️
… nor LeSS, nor Spotify, nor SAFe nor any other framework for that matter.
Well, I do a bit, because they are helpful. But I care much more about the specific needs of the Team, the Product, the Organization. And I care more about creating Business Value.
And no, this is not another „Agile is dead“ post (what’s up with that anyway?).
On the contrary. Being flexible about the tools and methods you apply in each context lies at the very core of agility.
„Individuals and interactions over processes and tools“, remember?
You can have cross-functional, high-performing Scrum Teams, and still not improve your time-to-market, because you have complicated up- or downstream processes.
You can run the most perfect, super productive Dailies and Sprint Retrospectives, and still suffer from very low flow efficiency, because of unmanaged cross-team dependencies.
Frameworks are helpful, but they are never the answer to all your problems.
Where to get these answers then? Well, first you have to ask the right questions.
👉 Is everyone working in the same direction? Define a clear vision and make sure all value streams are working towards it.
👉 Are we building the right products? Implement short and frequent feedback loops with your stakeholders and users.
👉 What is slowing us down? Visualize your processes to identify pain points and bottlenecks.
👉 Is our system as simple as possible? Map out cross-team dependencies, reduce where possible and actively manage the rest.
👉 Are our communication channels effective? Question whether the current modes of communication facilitate clear, concise, and open dialogue across teams, stakeholders, and users.
And, most importantly:
👉 Are the people creating the business value still in the center of our processes and tools? Check your expert’s happiness and adjust if needed.
You will quickly find that the answers to these questions differ strongly depending on the context.
What more, even the questions that should be asked in the first place will vary from team to team, from organization to organization, and from moment to moment.
So, how can there be one right answer, one proper framework for all our problems?
Or is there? 😉 Let me know in the comments.
