Why is Scrum so popular?

Of the many reasons given for choosing Scrum, organizations are predominantly attracted by:

• Speed to market
• Increased productivity
• Lowered cost
• Competitiveness.

Note the relentless focus on time and money?

Implementing Scrum

By the time organizations decide to adopt Scrum, they have to decide how to implement it. On more than one occasion, I’ve experienced organisations conducting an internal search for anyone that knows Scrum with the expectation that these people can then drive Scrum adoption. But as anyone who has done this before will tell you, adopting Scrum is somewhat complicated.

Scrum isn’t something that only affects the IT Department. In fact, Scrum isn’t just a way to manage software product creation.  Scrum is all about organisational change. Scrum is disruptive. Scrum will shine bright lights into the dark corners of your organization and highlight issues with people and processes. Some people don’t welcome this. Old fiefdoms are challenged and internal strife can ensue. Expect politics. Expect attrition.

Do we really want to entrust this potential boiling cauldron to the guy from the maintenance team who knew someone that did Scrum a couple of years ago?

Prepare Your Team

To prepare your organization, the people charged with guiding the implementation of Scrum, and the people that will be practicing Scrum, you need knowledge and skills.

You can do all of this on your own, of course. The Scrum Guide tells you everything you need to know about Scrum and at only 17 pages long, it’s an easy read. There are a number of really good books about Scrum available too. Don’t forget the Internet for research and reading as well. There’s loads of information available to you, free of charge. In fact, your true challenge will be to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Do the above options on preparing your team for Scrum sound like the fastest way to achieve the benefits? Or do they look like the cheapest?

Let me draw your eye back to the opening paragraph where I describe the relentless focus on time and money. If you’ve decided to implement Scrum, why are you hobbling the adoption with a sub-optimal approach to preparation?

The Importance of Quality Scrum Training

The real value in good quality Scrum training for an organization, is that it catapults you forward in time. It’s like hitting hyper-drive and taking your brain on a tightly focused journey to assimilate hard-won knowledge and skills from people that have done it before you. You’ll avoid the road blocks, mis-placed road signs, man traps, peaks and valleys. You’ll get from zero to Scrum enlightened in two days. What’s that worth to you?

In fact, while we’re at it, don’t limit your Scrum training to one or two selected people. Scrum is going to affect your organization. Why not book in a series of on-site Scrum training sessions to get your Scrum preparation off to a flying start? We’d be happy to help so do please check our Scrum training schedule for our public courses or contact us if you’re interested in on-site training. If we can’t make it to you, we know that any one of our trainer colleagues at Scrum.org will be there for you.