A month or so back, a recruitment agency contacted me and asked if they could put my CV forward for a Scrum role at a large client. Apparently the client was about to kick off a project and wanted it to be agile. I said yes and then never heard anything for 2 weeks. I chased the agency up for some news or feedback and was told:
The client is debating whether it needs a Project Manager with Scrum experience or a Scrum Master.I responded:
Sounds like they don’t really understand Scrum.The agent replied:
I think they’d be the first to admit they are lacking in understanding, which is why they want to hire external expertise.This organisation wants a project to be agile, to follow Scrum specifically. They know they know very little about Scrum and they decide to hire someone who does. So, if they know they don’t know about Scrum what makes them qualified to decide whether they need a Project Manager with Scrum experience or a Scrum Master?
Scrum doesn’t work without a Scrum Master! It does work without a Project Manager.
4 Comments
I agree that a scrum master is what they need. And if the company is really wants to shift from their corporate habbits, it can help to have someone who at least understands where some of these idiocracy's come from.
To better explain why they work contra productive, and why certain scrum practises are better.
A year or two ago, we were mostly seeing "bottom-up" transitions in which developers were begging for Scrum, piloting it, and then making a case to executives. There has been a shift in recent months and now we're seeing executives say "We MUST do this Scrum thing." They then want a traditional "roll-out" plan and fall into analysis paralysis on how to implement Scrum.
It's a very non-agile way of thinking about organizational change yet this kind of decision making is so ingrained in corporate culture that it's impossible to blame them.
I certainly have had moments of frustration with teams who approach agile transitions in a waterfall manner but the good news is that eventually, 90% of them get some further education and come back to me when things have settled into place. Hopefully you have the same experience.
By the way, have you seen the movie, Idiocracy? I really wanted to respond to your post "it has electrolytes! It's what plants crave!" If you haven't seen the movie, you should rent it :)
Thanks for the tip on the movie. I'll be sure to watch it.
all of this is why you need a project manager (who understands scrum - hopefully is a scrum master) - to explain to management what has to happen for agile success. Also need someone to create management reports so they can keep their stakeholders happy. Politics is the main job of the PM anyway.