September 15th, 2008
Shock Therapy… or Compassion?
Guided by a discussion on the Scrum Trainers list I just read Jeff Sutherland’s latest blog, Shock Therapy: Bootstrapping Hyperproductive Scrum, where he quotes the words of Scott Downey, the MySpace Scrum coach, describing his Scrum bootstrapping techniques.
There is something about the approach that disturbs me. Jeff uses terms like “forceful and mandatory” to describe his preferred Scrum implementations. He uses the term compliance. On the Scrum Trainers list he throws out the term “wishy-washy” to disregard current Scrum implementations. It is difficult to speak up in opposition to the founder of a movement, especially when the espoused ideas appear so compelling. Jeff Sutherland is smart, experienced and well respected, but on this issue I feel a sense of discomfort, so here goes… Is “hyper-productive” what we are seeking? What does that mean anyway? It sounds silver, and bullet-shaped.
What Jeff Sutherland and Scott Downey are describing is forced compliance to a process. Is that what Scrum is? I didn’t think so. It isn’t what I seek. It isn’t why I joined this gang. What happened to empowerment, to choice, to innovation, to collaboration? Is all of that now discarded as wishy-washy? Is it relegated to the dreaded realm of touchy-feely… or worse, reserved for the exclusive use of these “hyper-productive” teams endorsed by the Scrum elite? What does this mean?
I fear the concept of hyper-productivity, represented by Shock Therapy, will run rough-shod over the essential human values of enjoyment and passion, and the empowering feeling of self-organization, fueled by trust. And it concerns me.
I am not doing what I do for the sake of hyper-productivity, I am doing it for the sake of freedom, for the sake of advocacy, for a sense of ownership and a sense of self. I guess it could be argued that Scott’s approach leads to such empowerment, over time. I have heard that argument before, years and years ago: happy people don’t produce good software, the act of producing good software makes people happy. The idea has merit, on the surface, but I didn’t believe it then, and I don’t believe it now. I have not seen it bear fruit, and I think it is a temporary solution. A quick fix. People are worth more than compliance to solutions.
My feeling, my core belief, is that change has to begin within the individual for it to have any true meaning and long-term sustainability, for it to really matter. Trouble is, I have no metrics to prove this. Jeff and Scott have metrics. My gut tells me they are questionable, but I am hard pushed to find a coherent argument to sustain an opposing viewpoint. Process metrics are simple; people metrics (ones that represent the real truth of feeling) are harder to uncover.
I could be completely wrong here, but I don’t feel like standing by and letting “Shock Therapy” be the default way forward for Scrum. Empathy and compassion as agents of change need an advocate too. I’ll be that advocate.
Shock Therapy was used to “cure” drug addicts between the 1940’s and 1980’s. It had limited success. Today, a gentler, more spiritual approach is followed. It takes longer, but yields a more effective, and longer-term recovery. It is altogether kinder.
Based on what I have read, I would not hire Scott Downey to transform an organization. I would look to someone with a more human and less mechanical heart. Change is so vital to this industry, it cannot possibly be represented by process alone.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
I think you may be mistaking the language of Jeff’s post - and perhaps Scott’s approach - for the idea itself. At the early stages of a change, it is often more compassionate to give people direction and a clear set of rules. That definition can make people feel safer, as long as it is delivered with humanity. It also has to be followed up with freedom and ownership in order for a Scrum team to continue innovating, though - I’m curious what happens with Scott Downey’s teams in 10 sprints, or even 50.
Response: April, you make a good point. The idea that it is compassionate to provide simple solutions is well taken. The difficulty I have is that somewhere in all of this we are losing the essence of Scrum. Since Scrum was defined in 1993 it has emerged. Scrum today is not a methodology, and I would argue it is hardly a process. It is a framework that allows teams to create their own process based on their particular context. It is the inspect/adapt mechanism of Scrum which is essential to its usefulness. The methods that Jeff and Scott describe do not allow for improvement based on context. Retrospectives, if you read Scott’s words, are little more than a review of metrics. The spirit of personal change does not live in metrics. It lives in people. Scrum thrives through continuous adaptation to its context. Lose that, and we are back on the opppressive track of “do what we say”. Management again drives process and the ideal of self-organization sinks into the quagmire of command-and-control. — Tobias
September 17th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Agile, Scrum, XP are all based on a very high discipline(self discipline)paradigms. These Values based, Self-organizing, Empirical Process driven Team Approaches need a very high team maturity. That’s why Kent Beck is now calling it “Responsible Development” - tied with Responsibility, Accountability and Transparency.
In ab-initio learning of any such attitude driven disciplines, like Martial Arts, Yoga, Sports or even Commando Training, the initial training is highly “command and control” oriented induction into the ideologies and values first. This phase is painful and normally not easily achievable in a democratic self-organizing environment. Once the team is focussed and driven on a value system by a hard-disciplined coach, then the teams get to know the entire system and the rationale of how and why it works.
Once the teams, scrum-master, product-owner and related management stakeholders go through these simulated, directed, most times painful, team work, they can then steer themselves on the self-organizing mode on their own.
Without this grinding, practical, hands on disciplined orientation and monitored induction of the teams, it is easier to wriggle out of the pain that is caused in learning the discipline and commitment that is called for in Agile to succeed.
Hence I am inclined completely to not just believe in what Scott says, but also whole heartedly subscribe to it. I do not feel it is contradicting the basic Agile Values in any way as this approach is used only for ab-initio training of new teams and stakeholders. This ends once the teams are trained.
This has also been my experience, in exactly similar lines, of all the teams I coached on such terms and they succeeded.
September 17th, 2008 at 9:47 am
I’ve found the post of Jeff Sutherland to be more about Big-Bang Full-Immersion scrum boorstrapping versus Gradual step-by-step scrum boorstrapping.
I don’t have found it to be about Authoritarian scrum boorstrapping versus compassionate boorstrapping. But if you are interested in discipline as a way to safely explore, experiment and learn I strongly raccomend this book of Asha Phillips “Saying No”
September 29th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Hi Tobias - very important discussion. I put my comment on my blog. http://www.borisgloger.com