It takes Structure and Discipline

New habits and a change of mindset

Selected learnings

About me• 2012 Cert. Scrum Master

• Trying to use the framework since then as:o A Team Leader

o Project Manager/Product Owner

o Since Nov. 2014 as full-time Scrum Master for two software dev. teams

o Since April 2015 as a father for a new born child

About Bonnier Publications

• Part of Bonnier AB

• 16 countries – 350 brands/companies

• Over 8000 employees working with media

• We are in the beginning of a digital transformation

Interactive• Two Development Teams:

• WhiteAlbum: The Editorial Platform

• APP-Team: Features and functionality that the Platform

can use and the infrastructure that allows 3rd party to

develop for us

Structure & Discipline• Structure as:

o Creation of a process flow for collaboration and co-ordination

o Organizing our time effectively and make room for flexibility

o Supporting working as a team and not a group of individuals

Structure&DisciplineDiscipline as:

- The actions that supports and makes the structure and the process happen

Selected symptoms of dys-function

• Structure: A lot of interpretations of the Framework

• Structure: Top-down management of Development Team o Was not a Team but a Group – no explicit Shared Goal

o Co-coordinating tasks to - instead of setting the stage/vision for the dev. team

• Really difficult because P.O used to be Scrum Master and Team Lead for the developers.

• No environment for Pull for the Development Team

• Lack of mutual trust between P.O and Development Team

o Development Team working as a group of individuals “My task/User Story is Done”

o Dev. Team Pleasing product Owner and afraid of committing

o Organization expecting fixed Scope and Fixed deadline without affecting quality

o Push for velocity increase

o Scrum Master for some felt like a Process Monster just creating obstacles

• Development Team Disciplineo “Team Forgetting/not doing what agreed”

• Too many to-do´s

• Team not taking responsibility. Individuals ´hiding´ in the team – “Others will probably do it..”

o Seeing ceremonies as waste/boring – lets just develop

o Retrospective Bottleneck – team unwilling to add more improvements in a long period

o Development team not doing what was agreed at retrospective

Learnings:

Structure Issue: A lot of interpretations of

the Framework

• By-the-book to get a common agreed structure

• Scrum Master becomes a Scrum Mom

Learning:

Structure Issue: Top-down management• Always have a Sprint Goal

• Assign to Team and not individuals – but wait to see who grabs it..

• Step back to give Team responsibility

• Dev. Team hold each other accountable. To gain trust and to avoid micro-

management

• Start measure P.O by quality as well

Learning

Issue: Top-down management• Scrum Mom role prevents Dev. Team from taking responsibility

• Scrum Master by some seen as a process monster just adding obstacles.

• Learnings:

• Be aware of when to go from Scrum Mom to Scrum Master

• Visualizing the Shu-Ha-Ri to visualize steps we go through

Issue: Disciplineo Team “Forgetting/not doing what agreed”

• Learnings:

• Be aware that it is hard to change the simplest habit.

Issue: Discipline• Team not taking responsibility.

• Individuals ´hiding´ in the team – “Others will probably do it..”

• Learnings:

• Step back as a P.O – team was expecting answer

• Wait for someone in the team to take the responsibility even if it gets really

silent and awkward

Issue: Disciplineo Seeing ceremonies as waste/boring – lets just develop

• Learnings

• Understand the Why and wished outcome

• Went through Why do we for each Ceremony and Artifact

• Started every ceremony with Purpose and Wished outcome

Issue: Disciplineo Retrospective Bottleneck – no new chosen improvements

• Learnings

• Find the form the suits the dev. team. We changed our retrospective form to

a more light-weight form

• Be patient and focus on the Process and the Goal will be a result of it

• Its all the small things that ads up – no need to look for the game changer

Issue: Disciplineo Development team not doing what was agreed

o Learning:

• It just takes one team member to get the process off track and make

artifacts useless

• We wanted perfect from the beginning and went back to ´Basics´ and

builded up slowly

Conclusion• Structure:

• To get started it is essential to have a common agreed

structure where we know why we have each ceremony

and artifact. A structure that allows each role to do what

they are responsible of.

• When this works. Start trying out new improvements

Conclusion• Discipline:

• To get started: Do what is agreed and start making it

your own later.

• Be aware that changing a habit is hard.

• Until it becomes a habit our brain is using unwanted

energy on it.

Next Steps• We would like to create more transparency for the rest of

the organization.

• Establishing a Agile Transition Team to take the process

to an organizational level

Questions?