Does Scrum Save Your Business?

When I met Agile

I used to have startup developing a mobile application. We were two people working hard and at some point successfully, even though we were a big mess. Both of us doing things from design, to coding, to management, to marketing to planning everything needed. Yes, it is a typical startup mess, that we loved.

But as a co-founder I though of future. Mess between two people is still pretty organized mess, but mess in a growing company with many people? That's deadly.

I had no experience with project management, with being entrepreneur or what the hack is Agile whatsoever. I remember almost one year ago I sat at an interview for an IT company. They loved our app and they supposed I know Agile methodology as it's an obvious thing in development. "We work as agile team, we apply Scrum, Kanban, I think, I don't have to explain what it is. I ended up sitting in front of Google and reading tons of articles about what is agile, who is Product Owner and I came across tons of nonsense as well. At that time I got an offer from a different IT company (oh yeah - this one - you got it right)! and I fell in love with Agile framework - Scrum. Now it's my daily bread and I see - it's not about doing agile, but about being agile.

Scrum saving the whole world?

It is said that above 50% of software projects that were implemented are ending up with over crossing a budget, not delivering products on time or ending up with features nobody ever uses. But why? Why we don't wanna count with the changes? Why we use waterfall? All I ever got from kayaking is once you're in a waterfall, you re pretty much f* and have to fall down until the waterfall hits it's bottom as well as it's in waterfall planning. The changes in half of the process in development are so difficult and so expensive to do, that nobody will rather propose them as it's their own showcase of fail or danger of showing weakness in planning. So, could potentially Scrum save old waterfall driven companies or companies which needs different project management?

It's all about the mindset

No, unless... unless you have the right team with the right mindset. Scrum is not a dogma. It's not a pill you take at night and you are healed in the morning. If you want to apply agile, you have to count with huge loss of people who don't have the mindset, who just can't make it. I was lately part of discussion with Martin Fišer, founder of Brand New- a marketing agency - who turn his company to be completely agile. And yes, it was the case when almost 40 % of people left the work, because they just couldn't make it.Now, question yourself - would you risk that as the CEO of a company with thousands of employees? Imagine an international bank turning agile. Where would you suddenly grab 40% of your team to continue the business?

Still, look around the possibilities to transform your business for better tomorrows. Try piece by piece transform or set your team to agile. It will save you lots of money and lots of energy in future. After all, it's all about the mindset transformation, professionals and the team you built from the scratch. So, before going big or going home, if you have the option - try to built from fundamentals agile team as Spotify did, as Elon Musk does as we do. Your life will be easier and still not sweet too much not to make you work hard.

Author: Veronika Dominiková