“The oak is probably the strongest tree in the forest, Willow with adaptability and flexible body. But when faced with fires and storms, the willow is the last to survive. – Kara Barbieri

The essence of Scrum is flexibility: A small team with great flexibility and adaptability.

In other words: Scrum requires people to be flexible in many situations. Be flexible in their interactions with others for ways to deliver the highest value. Be flexible in their processes so they can improve them. Flexible in the plan, so you can better follow it as more information arrives.

So the question I ask you is: How flexible is your Scrum team? And if your team is not flexible, is your team really doing “Doing Scrum”?

A common mistake causes the new Scrum team to often become less flexible.

Most teams that are just starting out with Scrum are inflexible because they try to start off with a fairly “safe” move while facing too many changes, uncertainty and risk. Besides, there is an outdated traditional group management model with unnecessary rules that make team members feel like they are under control from the top.

When you choose a safe move, it reduces the risk for the team to take the new step forward. This is the problem because Scum is a Framework that allows really efficient new processes to emerge. You need to explore to find out what works best with your current circumstances and situations, and this requires taking risks.

“Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one’s better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act.” Maxwell Maltz

Often the difference between the successful and the loser lies not in who has a better ability or idea, but in the courage to bet their own idea, to take the risk. calculation and action forward.

What makes a change is that you have to step out of the “safe” zone. If you just stand within that safe limit, you will not get any breakthrough but you can only do what you did before with only a little change.

This seems very abstract, but let me give some concrete examples of teams playing too safe and lacking flexibility.

Try to see if your team is really flexible with the following different scenarios:

Sprint Planning [Sprint Plan]

• “We cannot add this item to the sprint plan because it does not meet the” Definition of Ready “that we defined.”
• “We can’t include this item in our sprint plan because it doesn’t have Story Points yet.”

The prerequisite for adding items to the Sprint in Scrum is: The Product Backlog item is projected to be completed during that Sprint. Story Points are optional and add-on only.

Refinement [Grooming]

• “We cannot discuss this in the Refinement Meeting, because it needs to go through the pre-refinement stage before.
• “User Story is missing the” Acceptance criteria “. So please add an Acceptance criteria so that we can clarify this issue in the next session. ”

Pre-refinement is not a concept in Scrum, there is only Refinement (also known as Backlog item smoothing). Development teams usually don’t spend more than 10% of their time on this job. Although the Scrum documentation states that the Product Backlog often includes test descriptions to demonstrate completeness when an item is considered “Done”. But really, the Acceptance criteria is an optional item only …

Work with other groups

• “We can only help with approval from the Scrum Master.”
• “We cannot add this item to the sprint, because we have already started our sprint.”

The Scrum Master is not the one who decides everything, nor the one who works as a Goal Keeper for the team. Teams can communicate directly with each other and items can be added or removed from the Sprint, as long as it does not jeopardize the Sprint Goal.

So the main question I want to discuss remains: Why do groups often react like that instead of being more flexible?

Why aren’t some groups more flexible?

“If failure is not an option, so is success.” – Seth Godin

To become more flexible, the team needs to change the way they work.

To change their working style, they need to take risks.

And to accept risks, the team needs to feel “safe enough” to accept these risks.

This feeling of “safe” enough to accept this risk is called psychological security . Groups that have experienced this often have thoughts:

“Feel safe to take risks and accept criticism in front of each other.”

Without safety mentality there would be no risks. Without risk it means there will be no real change at all, and without real change your Scrum team will never be flexible. Such a team is just trying to find a way to match what they have done before to match the Scrum framework.

Psychological safety was identified as a key component of the high-performance teams at Google in the Aristotle project . Psychological security also forms the foundation for the template to describe the different stages of high-performance teams: Model ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team’ by Patrick Lencioni. Psychological safety is considered the cornerstone of this Model.

The important thing I also want to mention is this: There are more high performance and risk-taking groups out there than just psychologically secure. But psychological security forms the foundation of a high-performance team. Think if you don’t have enough trust to rely on each other, how can you become a high performing team?

Flexibility requires psychological security

Scrum requires your team to be flexible.

Without being flexible, the team will not find a way to deliver the most value and will not be able to find the best workflow. And will not find the best plan when receiving new information to come ..

Most teams that are just starting out with Scrum often become less flexible. New Scrum teams try to choose to go safe in the face of too many uncertain and risky changes. These groups often use outdated working styles, they put familiar and unnecessary rules on TOP and as a result make the members feel like they’re being controlled ..

A safe direction often brings certainty but does not make a real change. This is a problem because Scrum is a process framework that allows a truly efficient new workflow to emerge, and this requires taking risks.

Psychological safety ➡ Take risks ➡ Change ways ➡ Be flexible

In order for Scrum teams to take risks, they need to feel mentally secure. This allows risk-taking to lead to real changes to workflow and allows flexibility and response to change so that you can operate effectively and make progress. new.

In short: If your team is inflexible, your team is not implementing Scrum !!!

Thank you for reading. Please Share if you like this translation and please share your thoughts! Hope you enjoy my other translations as well.

Source: https://medium.com/serious-scrum/if-you-are-not-flexible-you-are-not-doing-scrum-ebf41f47d151