The scalability of Scrum

Chip Lemmon — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 01:35:14 GMT

So I've been playing the role of Scrum Master for a grand total of 6 Sprints on 2 projects. In that time I've come to two very distinct issues that make me question if what I am doing is really Scrum? While I believe that you cannot adhere to any methodology 100% without some interpretation and customizing, I am wondering if the things I am doing are so profoundly out of bounds that it invalidates our approach as Scrum.

Scenario 1: I as a "Scrum Master" dutifully play the role by limiting if not completely removing all impediments for my team. However, I manage 3 concurrent application development efforts at the same time. So while I am integrated into the design and development decisions of my teams, I am only there for each team 33%. Is this okay for a Scrum Master? Let's take it one step further. While I do make the ultimate design decisions I am not actually writing the code with my team. Does this negate my effectiveness as a Scrum Master?

Scenario 2: Some of my projects use a blend of on-shore and off-shore staff. Does this violate the pure intent of Scrum? There is not very much cohesion among the two groups of developers. This doesn't feel like a very Agile setup.

So what do my projects do that is Scrum?

1. We have a pre-sprint planning meeting every sprint.
2. We manage a product backlog and a sprint backlog.
3. We manage our progress in burn-down charts.
4. We run 30 day sprints.
5. We have a daily scrum that lasts no more than 15 minutes (usually).
6. Each developer chooses the tasks to work on and determines their own estimated effort.
7. We conduct a post-sprint review with the product owner.
8. We conduct a post-sprint retrospective.

Our daily scrum meetings are conference calls. The team communicates by e-mail and phone throughout the day as needed.

So my questions are simple. Can Scrum scale? Can a single Scrum Master effectively run multiple scrums? And can a team truly follow Scrum if they are an on-shore/off-shore mix?

--chaz

A shift in focus

Chip Lemmon — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 04:50:23 GMT

Well for those of you who follow me and my blog (and who doesn't); a major life change signifies a shift in focus on this blog. For over a year I have been a big proponent of good User Experience. But as I have made some very deliberate decisions in my career I am assuming a role as a Scrum Master and Delivery Manager. I will still have architectural responsibilities too. So to be true to the principles of software design that I believe in, I will stay true to User Experience in my new roles, I just may not blog about it so much.

As I exit stage left from the forefront of User Experience I just have to say that the term User Experience has been over used and misused by so many. The real misuse of "User Experience" came about with the introductions of WPF and Silverlight in my opinion. Now don't get me wrong, these two technologies certainly do enhance the beauty and functionality of an application. However to me User Experience is more than skin deep. The User Experience is really all about the psychology of the user in relationship to the software they are using. It is about the user's perception of ease of use, the software's ability to keep the user on task and the conversation that ensues between the two.

I've said it before in this blog, the User Experience is not owned simply by the UI designer/developer. The User Experience is the shared responsibility of the entire development team and begins at project inception. UX must be a first class citizen during solution architecture and remain so through presentation development and delivery.

--chaz