Le Scrum pour les nuls

Alexish

Demi-dieu
Hello, cette semaine j'ai assisté à un évènement orienté "scrum" sans savoir ce que c'est. Du coup j'étais un peu perdu et j'ai décidé d'écrire un article "le scrum pour les nuls". Comme d'hab, c'est sur mon blog et en anglais. C'est en gros un concept intéressant, généralement appliqué dans le domaine de l'informatique et du développement, pour remplacer la traditionnelle gestion de produit par un modèle plus flexible et interactif.

Comme je reste un bon débutant du scrum, si il y a des experts ici, n'hésitez pas à commenter ;)
Des évènements réguliers sont organisés à Shanghai pour travailler sur des problématiques ou découvrir des applications de cette méthodologie. Cette semaine, c'était avec le VP Chine de English First, qui galérait à rendre compatible Scrum et politique RH qui fonctionne en Chine.

Je ferai un review de la session Questions & Réponses très bientôt, mais j'ai jugé + utile de commencer par un "Scrum for dummies".

Enjoy ! Lien retiré



Wednesday night was my first experience of taking part of a Scrum user group. If you read my “About me” page, you may know that I’m not an IT guy, neither running a web /app start-up. I’m making underwear for men.
The only knowledge I have from Scrum or Agile comes from some of my developers / ruby enthusiast friends. And if these guys are rockstars behind a computer, when it comes to explaining what they do, it’s another story…and you get quickly lost between “dev teams”, “iterations” and other “scrum” stuff.
So, before reviewing that event, I’ll write this, so I’ll never have to ask, at a scrum event, what a scrum master is anymore.

Scrum for dummies

If you want to know more about the origins of this funny name, wikipedia it. Most of the scrum enthusiasts will basically introduce it as a revolution of the way product development happens.
Since IT stuff is pretty conceptual, I’ll use a daily life product, and not some iPhone app, to explain it. That product will be a beer can (fresh, full, and ready to drink).

Making beer – old school way

That’s the basic chain of command : the client describes his dream beer can, products managers lock themselves in a room, brainstorm, and come up with a great 3 month plan describing every step needed to get a perfect beer can. (They don’t really know that much about beer making, but they have a rough idea of what their workers can come up in a specific time).
They write a detailed schedule, go to the workers team, and tell them to get to work, that they’ve got 3 months and that everything is planned. A couple of months later, workers get back to them, and they check everything is fine. Then they figure out the design of the can is actually wrong, and it explodes when you open it. The workers have to start over from the same stage they were at 2 months ago.
First problem is detected: extensive planning = lack of flexibility.

Since everyone knows the client is always right, as soon as he’s changing is mind, product managers ask for a change to the workers teams. Workers refuse to do it, because for them it doesn’t makes sense (they’re the beer making experts, remember?), or they don’t have the time to do it, or both. Everyone fights, the beer is coming out late from the production line. Client is not happy.
Second problem is detected : product guys and workers don’t understand each other, and basically hurt or slow down each other.

Making scrum beer – the new way

3 major roles to get people to work together

You will notice there’s no hierarchy here, they’re working on the same level. Scrum aims at facilitating work and communication between people from different backgrounds, protecting them from “hurting” or slowing down each other.

Product Owner : it’s the voice of the client, he’s turning all the information into a clear brief, and forwards it to the development team.

Development team
: it’s the technical experts, they build the beer can. Since they have the biggest knowledge about beer making, they’re planning their work themselves.


Scrum master
: this guy is critical. First, he’s a bridge. He’s been drinking a lot of beer, so he knows about the technical details of it, but he also knows about the sales and the client side.

Second, he’s a buffer. He knows what the workers can and can’t do, so he will protect the workers from clients’ crazy ideas or impossible requests, so that they can stay focused on making great beer.
Third, he’s an old kung fu master. He knows the scrum concept by heart, makes sure everyone respects the basic rules and ensures application of it is smooth. If people get lost, he will put them back into the scrum way.

Getting rid of the extensive planning to create flexibility


  • Workers split the 3 month beer project into small steps which can be completed in a couple of days or less, such as : making the can, brewing the beer, putting the beer in the can, injecting pressure, closing the can. (it can be even smaller steps).
  • They start making the can. Everyday, they have very short meetings to make sure everything is going smoothly, and that everyone is one the same page.
  • Once they finish the can, the immediately test it, then present it to the client (through the product owner).
  • The client validates the progress, and they start the next step, brewing the beer. If the client isn’t satisfied, they come up with an updated can within a couple of days.
Mistakes are instantly corrected, and when they occur, the workers don’t need to step backwards very far. Progress is validated at smaller steps.

Scrum the world

We live in a fast world, we consume and share information at the speed of light, as we never did before. Notifications pop out from everywhere and our brain assimilate them in a blink of an eye. I guess business in general, and not only programming, is moving towards this way too.

New ways to manage companies or start-ups are rising, such as Lien retiré or the Lien retiré. Instant feedback, extreme flexibility and re activity become a standard. Scrum is part
of this speed wave, and is destroying hierarchy and traditional product management in order to cope that standard.


In my next post, which is a review of our Scrum user group meetup, featuring Eric Azumi, VP of English First in China, we’ll see that using Scrum can do magic to organizations, but also has some downsides, when it comes to keep your staff and especially your skilled scrum masters !

I’m still a newbie at this, so if you’d like to share ideas, bring some precision or just tell me I’m wrong, bring it on ! Comments are open to everyone Lien retiré

 
Dernière édition:
Merci Alexis pour cette presentation simple, c'est vrai que le bonhomme de EF n'a pas rendu la chose tres accessible aux neophytes.
Apres avoir discute avec les differents protagonistes de la conf, il se pose le probleme de l'adaptation du modele SCRUM aux societes chinoises.
En effet, dans beaucoup de cas, les employes manquent d'autonomie, et ont l'habitude de la methode baton/baozi: si personne les surveille, c'est roue libre au boulot.
De plus, tout est toujours compris a la fin d'une reunion, et quelques temps apres, on se rend compte que personne n'a rien compris.
Apres, certains me diront que c'est le role du manager de resoudre ce genre de probleme, mais dans une petite structure (environ 20/30 personnes) comme mon entreprise, il est impossible pour les managers d'etre derriere chaque tache et d'en verifier l'avancement. En plus d'etre penible (pour les deux cotes), c'est extremement chronophage, bouffant le temps de travail que je consacre a mes propres taches.
Voila, SCRUM c'est un peu le Winnie l'Ourson du project management, chacun etant sur un pied d'egalite. Mais en Chine, le SCRUM master risque fort de se transformer en contre-maitre...
 
C'est pour ça que j'essaye de vous aider :p

Bonjour Alexish

Je suis tres interesse par la chine (pour info je fais du Tai Chi Chuan depuis des annnees)
J aurais voulu travailler qq temps en chine en proposant mes services mais je ne sais pas par ou commencer, sinon ton Post que je trouve interessant.
Je suis un Coach Agile experimente et j ai pu former et coacher des centaines de scrum masters , product owners, team members et managers dans des grandes entreprises IT internationales
J ai pu effectuer les transformations agiles d'entites importantes en nombre d'ingenieurs DEV, en nombre de Projets ainsi qu en taille de Projet souvent internationaux (Europe, USA, India..)

Merci d'avance de l aide que vous pourrez m apportez pour rentrer en contact avec les grandes entreprises chinoises souhaitant les services d'un expert pour une migration agile reussie

Patrick
 
Est- ce que Mr Jourdain aurait pu scrumer sans meme le savoir? Merci pour cet article!
 
Bonjour Patrick,

Je peux te mettre en relation avec Jacob qui est un coach Agile à Shanghai (il a sa boite) Lien retiré
Sinon, il y a aussi Eric, un français qui applique l'Agile à son Marketing, et qui vient de débuter ses expérimentations (il nous en a parlé la semaine dernière au meetup Scrum).

Dis moi si tu veux que je te mette en relation, ça pourrait être un début ;) alex(at)china-entrepreneurship.com

Bonjour Alexish

Je suis tres interesse par la chine (pour info je fais du Tai Chi Chuan depuis des annnees)
J aurais voulu travailler qq temps en chine en proposant mes services mais je ne sais pas par ou commencer, sinon ton Post que je trouve interessant.
Je suis un Coach Agile experimente et j ai pu former et coacher des centaines de scrum masters , product owners, team members et managers dans des grandes entreprises IT internationales
J ai pu effectuer les transformations agiles d'entites importantes en nombre d'ingenieurs DEV, en nombre de Projets ainsi qu en taille de Projet souvent internationaux (Europe, USA, India..)

Merci d'avance de l aide que vous pourrez m apportez pour rentrer en contact avec les grandes entreprises chinoises souhaitant les services d'un expert pour une migration agile reussie

Patrick