Book Notes from 'Scrum: Doing Twice the work in Half the Time' By Jeff Sutherland
Pop the Happy Bubble
- One thing that happiness is
not - is complacency.
- Christa Foley - at Zappos :
I love coming to work, rather than encouraging you to become complacent,
our positive and uplifting culture makes you work harder.
- They want people who use joy
as a driver.
- That the only route to
employee happiness is a sense of fulfillment resulting from an important
job done well.
- Helping them achieve great
things.
- What can companies do to
create an atmosphere in which people thrive?
- Managers can encourage
autonomy by letting people make their own decisions about their job.
- Managers should have zero
tolerance for incivility and never allow an employee to poison corporate
culture through abuse or disrespect.
- They don’t realize that
continuous improvement means just that, it never ever stops.
- Team might be doing all the
things Scrum teaches - prioritization, single-tasking,
cross-functionality, review rituals - but they have stopped improving.
- So how do you pop the bubble
before your players embarrass themselves on live tv.
- The first step is to be
aware of the problem.
- Which is why we measure
velocity every sprint.
- The Wise Fool
- Is the person who asks
uncomfortable questions or raises uncomfortable truths.
- There are other ways of
popping the happy bubble
- Bring in new blood and
management intervention.
- With Scrum everything is
transparent - how much the team is producing, the quality of their work,
how happy the customer is.
Happy Today - Happy Tomorrow
- Harvard professor - asks
people what they're doing today makes them happy and whether it will make them happy
tomorrow.
- Four types of people
- Hedonist : is someone who is
doing what makes them happy right now - tomorrow? Let tomorrow worry
about tomorrow - I'll just enjoy today.
- Nihilists : it sucks today
and they think it will suck forever.
- Rat-race addicts : guys who
were brought in to run the place.
- The person who is working at
stuff that is fun today but has an eye toward a better future and who is
convinced it will be more fun forever.
- Happiness Metric is his
company - it helps the team help its members become better people.
- The fundamental Attribution
Error - when your surrounded by assholes, don’t look for bad people, look
for bad systems.
- Top of the pyramid - 'Achieve
Ones full potential'
- Scrum focuses on this -
helping people achieve personal growth and fulfillment.
- It is not just enough to be
happy - harnessed to produce results.
- All the elements of scrum
come together to help a person do just that.
The Takaway
- Its the journey not the
destination : True happiness is found in the process not the result.
- Happy is the new black
- Quantify Happiness
- Get Better Every day - and
measure it : at the end of each sprint, the team should pick one small
improvement that will make them happier.
- Secrecy is poison : everyone
should know everything
- Make Work Visible : have a
board that shows all the work that needs to be done.
- Happiness is Autonomy,
Mastery, Purpose : everyone wants to control their own destiny, get better
at what they do, and serve a purpose.
- Pop the Happy Bubble :
Complacency is the enemy of success.
Priorities
- Scott Maxwell - founder of
OpenView Venture Partners.
- Scrum isnt just about teams
going faster - its about boosting impact
- Pets.com / Zappos
- Both had vision - what
pets.com didn’t have was a sense of priorities.
- How to make faster/better
work for you - how to achieve greatness.
- Scott Maxwell - true power in
scrum lies in its ready, prioritized, and sized backlog of what to do.
The Backlog: What to Do When
- First thing you do when
starting scrum - start a backlog
- You need a clear idea of what
you want at the end of work.
- Once you have a vision - you
need to consider what it will take to make that happen
- Backlog should have
everything you could possibly include in the product
- What are the items that have
the biggest business impact. What is most important to the customer.
- Make the most money and the
easiest to do.
- You want to get to the things
that deliver the most value with the lowest risk.
- 80% of the value is in 20% of
the features.
- Customers really only want
20% of them.
- The trick to scrum is
figuring out how to build the 20% first.
- The difficult part isnt
figuring out what you want to accomplish - its figuring out what you can
accomplish.
- Figure out where the most
value can be delivered for the least effort. - do that first.
- Need someone who can figure
out both what the vision is and where the value lies. (Product Owner)
The Product Owner
- Only three roles in scrum
- You're doing the work
- You're a scrum master
- You're the product owner.
- Decides what should be
worked on
- Owns the backlog and more
importantly - what order is should be in
- Leadership has nothing to do
with authority
- It has to do with knowledge
and being a servant leader.
- Scrum Master is the how
- Product Owner is the what
- PO - needs to be able to
deliver feedback to the team.
- Half their time with the
customers
- Half the time creating the
backlog
- The customer is anyone who
will get value from what you're doing.
- The scrum master and the team
are responsible for how fast they're going and how much faster they can
get
- Essential Characteristics of
a Product Owner
- Needs to be knowledgeable
about the domain
- Know the market well enough
to know what will make a difference
- Empowered to make decisions
- Given leeway to make
decisions about what the product vision will be.
- Be available to the team
- Accountable for value.
- In business context - what
matters is revenue.
- I measure a product owner by
how much revenue they deliver per point of effort.