I love a good analogy and on the way to work today I was struck by the similarities between my journey and the route to a successfully Implementing Scrum.

As I thought more, I realized that there’s one skill you need more than any other to implement Scrum. Not only that, it’s a skill listed as one of the Five Principles of Scrum.

Can you guess what it is yet?

I’m working as an Agile Coach on a contract in London at the moment (side note: I’ve always believed that the most effective teachers not only teach but practice what they preach as well). Ordinarily, London is a hectic, busy place but when you add the fact that I’m here over the Olympics, it’s like commuting on steroids.

My journey consists of a ten minute walk on either side of a 10 minute tube journey. The walk is rather like being swept along with the tide and the tube journey is akin to playing sardines. The worst part of the journey is when I alight at the tube station. The massively greater majority of people move, like a slow, lumbering, all-powerful river, from my left to my right. I need to navigate my way across that river to get to the other side but hundreds of people are equally determined to keep going their own way and they have impetus and numbers on their side.

Picking my way across that mass of people is an exercise in focus. I need to pick my exit point and work my way across the flow, trying hard not to offend or upset anyone whilst at the same time accepting that others may not be as considerate.

As analogies go, I’m sure you can see where I’m headed with this. Helping with Business Transformation while implementing Scrum requires total focus.  There are many things that can happen in an environment to disrupt a Scrum implementation.  Be prepared.

You need a razor sharp focus on what you intend to achieve and a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of Scrum.  Armed with these you can help an organization transform its culture and adopt the agile way of working, with Scrum.

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