Importance Of Implementing SCRUM into Organizations

Scrum can be defined as an “agile” way to manage or execute a project, usually software development. An Agile software development that has Scrum is often perceived as a process or methodology, although it is preferable to see Scrum as a framework that is used for managing a process than seeing it as a methodology.
In Agile Scrum, there are specific descriptions of how everything is to be carried out on a project and much of it is left up to the Scrum development team. This happens because the team will understand the best way to solve the problem that is presented. For example, in Scrum development, a sprint planning meeting can be described as a desired outcome which can be a commitment to some set of features to be developed in the following sprint rather than some set of Task definitions, Entry criteria, Validation criteria, Exit criteria and this would be provided in most methodologies.
Scrum practically relies on a self-organizing and cross-functional team. This is to say the scrum team is self-organizing as there is no overall team leader who decides the person who will do a task or probably the way a problem will be solved. These kinds of issues are decided by the whole team and not just the scrum master or leader. Also explaining the meaning of the team’s cross functionality, everyone is needed to feature from the idea stage to implementation stage in scrum.
Scrum teams majorly consist of three specific roles which are the Product Owner, the Scrum Master and lastly the Scrum team. The Product Owner in scrum represents the business, or the customers/users and they guide the team towards building the right product. The Scrum Master can be seen as a coach for the team, who helps the team members to use the Scrum process to perform at the highest productive level. The Scrum Team is the team members of the Scrum development that carry out the major tasks of each project in an organization.
The belief of Scrum model is that projects progress through a series of sprints. In agile methodology, sprints are timed to no more than a month long, most commonly two weeks. Scrum methodology suggests that to plan for a meeting at the start of a sprint where the scrum team figure out the number of items they can commit to and afterwards create a sprint backlog which is a list of tasks that are to be performed during the sprint. The Scrum model advocates the daily scrums as a method which is used to synchronize the work of scrum team members as they deliberate the work of the sprint.
Also, at the end of a sprint, the scrum team carries out a review on the sprint and during this, the scrum team shows the new functionality to the Product Owner or any other stakeholder. There is also another activity in Scrum which is the sprint retrospective that occurs at the end of each sprint. The whole team including the Scrum Master and the Product Owner participates in this meeting. This meeting creates the opportunity to ponder on the sprint that has ended and also to identify the possible ways to improve.
In implementing scrum, it is not only about changing the superficial behavior or by just following the framework of Scrum but it has to do with addressing and changing the core values about leadership, communication, failure, change and teamwork which are all deeply rooted in an organizational culture. It is understood that if we do not change these core values, the change will not be sustained but just superficial.
Also in Implementing Scrum, it is all about changing how a team performs its work. A Scrum team does not become successful just because the team does it daily sprint planning, reviews and retrospectives dutifully neither does it automatically result in higher quality software or gain high customer satisfaction. A successful Scrum implementation in an organization requires that people change the values, attitudes and assumptions that under their attributes and how they will develop their software. When implementing Scrum, its not only the teams that needs to change but also the organization in which the work is done. The Scrum team needs freedom to experiment and also the organizational barriers to scrum have to be removed. There should be changes in the management styles and a learning attitude should be encouraged.
So, to implement scrum is more of changing the deep core values and assumptions and less of changing the superficial behavior which is somewhat difficult as it mirrors closely the difficulty of the different change programs.
Scrum can be viewed as only a framework for developing software, its approach and also artifacts which are based on a number of core values as said earlier on. When these core values are not matched with organizational culture, there will certainly be resistance or the goals of the change program will not be achieved.
Listed below are some of the core values that are kind of prevalent in a Scrum oriented organization:
* Teams are able to manage their own work
* Constructive and honest feedback is important for growth
* Customer’s involvement is crucial
* We can learn by discussing mistakes openly
* Communicating frequently is crucial for success
* Imperfect solutions that are frequently delivered are better than perfect solutions that are seldomly delivered.
* Customers are expert in their domain
* Growth is important even as a team or personally
* Delivering business is our job to our customers
* The decisions we make together as a team are the best
* Everyone should be able to learn to perform new tasks
* We are more effective as a team than being individuals
* Software development requires an iterative approach and its very complex.
* Individuals and teams are intrinsically
motivated to carry out a very good job and as such can be trusted.
There are some approaches to implementing Scrum. But before we look into this, we need to consider an important question: how to successfully implement Scrum in an organization. Apparently this is very difficult as this requires a very careful attention to both the organizational culture and the behavior that has to be changed.
There are two broad categories of approaches on how to implement scrum:
1. The first approach is the application of Shock Therapy to organizations or teams by rapidly and forcibly implementing scrum (Sutherland, et. Al.,2009). As much as success has been reported with this method, there has not been any data on the sustainability of these changes. ‘’The most general lesson which is to be learned from the more successful cases is that the change process goes through a series of phases which requires a considerable length of time. Skipping steps creates only an illusion of speed and it never produces a satisfying result” (Kotter, 1995).
There are some issues with this approach because by forcing change, any effects will most certainly not sustain because employees do not actually buy-in.
2. The second approach which is gradual, includes ad-hoc implementations of Scrum which slowly grow towards maturity. This is often without a precise effort but also include a more guided change models. This approach is kind of related to what is referred to as the “emergent change approach”. This approach is based on action research and organizational development and it calls for organizational change programs which involve employees in order to change towards a common goal.
There are some principles of implementing Scrum into an organization.
Knowing Scrum does not mean you know how to implement them into your organization. Every organization is different and there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution or approach. In order to implement Scrum successfully into your organization, one needs to adapt the Scrum implementation approach to the specific needs of the particular organization. For the purpose of this study, I will explain below seven principles/guidelines in implementing Scrum:
1. Follow the Principles
The measures to carry out scrum in an organization should follow the scrum principles:
* Inspect and adapt
* Deliver early and regularly
* Be transparent and open
* Have empowered, cross-functional teams
* Be time conscious
Scrum is kind of designed to help develop complex systems and organizations are complex, so to implement scrum in a traditional organization is even more complex. To plan and use organizational change by using scrum framework helps to guarantee that the organization continuously delivers and you equally gain trust as a result of the new approach showing good results.
2. Having the right people
Having the right people in an organization is a major success factor. In the case of Scrum projects, agile pioneers should be on board who are willing to break rules, enthusiastic about Scrum and Agile, willing to learn and use new techniques and 100% dedicated to the team. Even after a scrum project is over, it is only imperative that the pioneers will still be needed. They should transfer their knowledge to the rest of the organization. Some of them might have joined a scrum implementation team or improvement team with the mind of rolling out Scrum in the organization or carrying out difficult organizational changes.
3. Start with an important project
Since scrum is done to deliver a better product in a more efficient way, scrum should help us achieve our project goals in less time and cost. Both Scrum implementation and the project will benefit from each other. If the project is important enough, this will make it very easy to make necessary organizational changes possible which make the project gain in value and not the approach.
4. Have a sponsor
The sponsor who is someone strongly connected with the organization has a very important decision-making power which influences the leading strategy. This sometimes can be the CEO or someone close to that rank. Although some organizations don’t start with such a powerful sponsor, however the sponsor is responsible for deciding on the important improvements and the difficult changes. It is a good practice to make this sponsor the Product Owner of the Scrum improvement or implementation team.
5. Right Marketing
Scrum helps to create good products which are the best advertisement any organization can have. If an organization’s potential customer do not understand how good their product is, no one will buy anything from them, which gives room for good marketing. This same logic is applicable to Scrum because being successful is the best advertisement but we also need to think of how to sell success even within the organization. We also need to consider how to present our arguments at the right time, to the right people and using the right language.
6. Train the people and offer support
New rules and training has to be done for the scrum team before they start implementing Scrum. Expansion should be done on best practices so that they are ready for the first sprint. It is also vital that stakeholders are familiar with the scrum rules, however, some specific roles that require specialist training can be offered later as they are less important. As we deliver early in scrum, after a brief training we should start but some things may still be unclear and this will let questions arise during the first sprints. Support and help should be offered to the teams by an experienced scrum user or coach who through his/her guidance will increase the team’s confidence which is necessary to start with scrum. Although every organization is different and each organization needs a specific training/coaching and yes, you will have to adapt to this plan too but below is an example of how training can be done in an organization.
7. Involve the middle management
The largest resistance to scrum comes typically from the middle class. People who are in the middle management tend to have changes in their duties or responsibilities radically. So by involving this group into the scrum implementation, this group’s resistance can be turned into support.

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