Years ago when corporations came into being some management pattern was needed.
As there was no business model to copy something had to be adapted. Which organisation have to manage many people and work on complex projects? Army.
In Army there is whole command chain with president or a minister on the top, some generals and captains to work on maps and papers, sergeants and corporal to work with soldiers in the field. And of course the team to kill bad people whatever bad means.
In corporation minister is the CEO/chairman, generals and captains are the upper management to negotiate contracts, create and cancel projects. Sergeants are lower management – team leaders and all other X leaders – they work with the team close to the project. And of course the team to kill… I mean to do the job. Whatever job means.
After years of working with army style management corporations try to be agile. Less management, no X managers, self organising, cross functional teams.
Cross functional teams are quite popular also in army. Team with about seven people with different skills and armament could do a big mess… Isn’t it similar in scrum? No separate testers and developers team in scrum, no separate launcher teams and M16 teams in army :-)).
How might army look like if they use scrum?
Beginning
Sergeant: Team 167, you have to attack the tower…
Team 167: Serg, you have no longer the authority over the team, sir. We will choose our targets after meeting with Captain… I mean Product Owner.
Sprint planning
Captain: Teams, last sprint no team decide to attack the tower. This is the item of high priority and you must do this during this sprint.
Teams: No team volunteered for this item because it’s too big and not clarified enough. Teams would like to know if there are snipers in the tower and how many nades enemy has. Last time we encountered many impediments because items were not specified enough – land mines and one dangerous ambush. Captain, you have to work more on items specification.
Sprint – Daily scrum 1
Sergeant: Team 167, Captain wants us to rescue the hostage. We can do this on our way to the tower.
Team 167: Captain is not allowed to add new items during the sprint. You should know this as a scrum master… By the way, we don’t want you to be our scrum master any longer. You don’t obey to the scrum rules.
Sprint – Daily scrum 2 (sergeant got his last chance :-))
Sergeant: Team 167, I want to remind you KABOOM that you should meet daily. It’s very important to synchronise work between team members and… DADADADA BOOM plan next activities…
Sprint review
Team 167: Captain, we manage to kill enemy and occupy the tower.
Captain: Fine, so item #1352 is finished. Good job soldiers!
Sergeant: Sir… As a scrum master I have to remind you our definition of done. Tower is not jet fortified, tower has no communication with our base and the road to the tower is still mined.
Captain: Ok, so I can’t mark this item as done. Teams please bear in mind that item #1352 has high priority and must be finished until hmmm… release.
Can you imagine? :-)
