I’ve been updating myself on the activites in the Prince2 camp to update this project management framework. One thing that stuck is the lamentations about the large number of PINO projects. PINO is an acronym (actually an initialism) for Prince In Name Only. In the Scrum world this has commonly been called ScrumButt, drawn from “we’re doing Scrum, but…” as well as the frequent desire to kick such teams in the butt!

Martin Fowler, one of Agile Manifesto signatories has blogged recently on “flaccid Scrum” (http://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/FlaccidScrum.html). FWIW, I agree with him.

We must constantly remind ourselves (and those whom we seek to influence) that:

• Scrum is silent on which “software engineering” practices to use, but not on their use.
• We must continuously assess our way of working against the Agile principles.
• Undone work (aka technical debt) will continue to cripple delivery of value as long as we continue allow it to accumulate.
• Scrum is just a tool to expose deficiencies and dysfunction in the team and the organisation – the problems remain ours to tackle and solve.

So while we continue to battle our demons, how about honestly calling some Scrum implementations SINO (Scrum In Name Only)?

At the Scrum Gathering in Orlando last week Pete Behrens facilitated an Open Space session on “Metrics and Myths”. We considered four categories of measurements: productivity, quality, predictability and value. In each we each contributed measurements that are either “metrics” or “myths”. We stuck them up on a wall as you can see in the photos. In this first post I’m simply showing the pictures I took of the session. In subsequent posts, I aim to construct some reasoned arguments for a few Agile metrics Mike and I consider valuable to any organisation transitioning to Scrum.

Metrics & Myths

Right now I’m sitting at the back of the class while my good friend André is conducting an introduction workshop on ITSM (IT Service Management) using the ITIL framework at a major retailer.

He tells a story to illustrate the difference between incident management and problem management. The latter requires a root cause analysis. The aha! moment for me is when he says that root cause analysis is the start of a CM (Change Management) process.

I realise that Scrum is an ongoing change management process. In every daily Scrum meeting, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective the team (and stakeholders) inspect their work and their process and make adaptations to improve.

Scrum rules!

I was fortunate to attend the Scrum gathering last week. It was held at the impressive Gaylord Palms resort in Kissimmee, Orlando. I arrived early and spent Sunday visiting Disney’s nearby Epcot theme park.

Space Shuttle Discovery launch 2009.03.15 19:45

Planet Earth at Epcot

Our evening cocktail party, hosted by the PMI, was interrupted to observe the launch of the space shuttle Discovery at Kennedy Space Centre, some 50 km East of Orlando. Just before the 7:43 pm launch time we gathered on an East-facing balcony to watch. This was to be the last night-time launch of the shuttle as we know it. We weren’t disappointed.

Being Agile includes working at a sustainable pace. That means we have time for important things outside of work. Like our family, our health, our faith and our planet Earth.

I invite you to invest an hour together with a billion more people in our planet Earth. Sign up at:

http://www.earthhour.org.za/?refer=16c79cd9c309f09dda3606abfaedcff