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A Tale of Two Scrums: Agile Done Right and Agile Gone Wrong
Dr. Jeff Sutherland, co-creator of Scrum and Senior Advisor and Agile Coach to OpenView, explains why Healthcare.gov’s poor leadership and failure to meet a “working product” resulted in a sinking ship. On the other hand, he also explains how companies can follow in the footsteps of Spotify’s success by hiring experienced Agile coaches, employing seamless coordination, and mastering the art of systematic waste management. Listen in to this week’s Labcast below.
This Week’s Guest
“[Spotify’s] competition is Google, Amazon and Apple, any one of whom could crush them in a nanosecond, unless they’re faster, better, cheaper. And they have to stay that way. They have to keep on running out ahead.” – Jeff Sutherland
Key Takeaways
Healthcare.gov: An example of software development gone wrong
* Lack of coordination between the front end and back end. While the front end employed Scrum, it missed the second principle of the Agile Manifesto: “Working software” [3:00]
* Weak leadership. There were 20-25 consultancies working on the project, but no one steering the ship. [4:05]
* They project should have been launched on a state-by-state basis. This would have allowed success for the states that did work and allowed developers to work on the back end to fix the other states. [3:30]
Spotify: an example of Agile done right
* Why employ Scrum? Going Agile allows Spotify to be faster, better, and cheaper than industry Goliaths like Google, Amazon, and Apple. [8:40]
* Spotify ensures its Scrum masters are also experienced Agile coaches. [8:20]
* Excellent team coordination. Employing “squads” and “tribes,” Spotify makes sure its teams are continuously deploying software and sprinting. [9:15]
* Systematic waste removal. Knowing when to cut off slow teams is crucial to elegant Agile. [11:30]
Additional Resources
* ScrumInc.com
* Scrum.JeffSutherland.com
Listen Here
Transcript
Jonathan: Hello everyone, and welcome to Labcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Crowe, and with us today we have a very special guest — Dr. Jeff Sutherland. He’s the creator of Scrum. For those who don’t know, Scrum is an Agile development framework that dramatically changes how people work, how they organize themselves, and it makes organizations faster, better and far more productive.
Jeff has an incredible background and vast experience in software development. He’s been a VP of Engineering as well as a CTO or CEO of 11 software companies. He’s also the chair of the Scrum Foundation and he’s a senior adviser and Agile coach for us here at OpenView Venture Partners. In fact, Jeff leads a monthly Scrum master and product owner trainings right here in OpenView offices, and he’s kindly taking a break from one of those to talk with us right now.
Jeff, thank you very much for being here, for taking the time.
Jeff: Yeah, thanks for doing this Jonathan.
Jonathan: The topic we’ll be discussing today is one I’m really excited about. It’s examples of Agile done right, and Agile gone bad. This is something, I know, that comes up a lot in the trainings. People always like to hear about examples of Scrum and Agile in action, and lately there’s been one very prominent example of Agile gone bad that I’m curious to hear your thoughts about. Can you talk a little bit about healthcare.gov, what went wrong and how better Agile practices could have maybe helped avoid what’s become a really notorious software disa...
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Dr. Jeff Sutherland, co-creator of Scrum and Senior Advisor and Agile Coach to OpenView, explains why Healthcare.gov’s poor leadership and failure to meet a “working product” resulted in a sinking ship. On the other hand, he also explains how companies can follow in the footsteps of Spotify’s success by hiring experienced Agile coaches, employing seamless coordination, and mastering the art of systematic waste management. Listen in to this week’s Labcast below.
This Week’s Guest
“[Spotify’s] competition is Google, Amazon and Apple, any one of whom could crush them in a nanosecond, unless they’re faster, better, cheaper. And they have to stay that way. They have to keep on running out ahead.” – Jeff Sutherland
Key Takeaways
Healthcare.gov: An example of software development gone wrong
* Lack of coordination between the front end and back end. While the front end employed Scrum, it missed the second principle of the Agile Manifesto: “Working software” [3:00]
* Weak leadership. There were 20-25 consultancies working on the project, but no one steering the ship. [4:05]
* They project should have been launched on a state-by-state basis. This would have allowed success for the states that did work and allowed developers to work on the back end to fix the other states. [3:30]
Spotify: an example of Agile done right
* Why employ Scrum? Going Agile allows Spotify to be faster, better, and cheaper than industry Goliaths like Google, Amazon, and Apple. [8:40]
* Spotify ensures its Scrum masters are also experienced Agile coaches. [8:20]
* Excellent team coordination. Employing “squads” and “tribes,” Spotify makes sure its teams are continuously deploying software and sprinting. [9:15]
* Systematic waste removal. Knowing when to cut off slow teams is crucial to elegant Agile. [11:30]
Additional Resources
* ScrumInc.com
* Scrum.JeffSutherland.com
Listen Here
Transcript
Jonathan: Hello everyone, and welcome to Labcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Crowe, and with us today we have a very special guest — Dr. Jeff Sutherland. He’s the creator of Scrum. For those who don’t know, Scrum is an Agile development framework that dramatically changes how people work, how they organize themselves, and it makes organizations faster, better and far more productive.
Jeff has an incredible background and vast experience in software development. He’s been a VP of Engineering as well as a CTO or CEO of 11 software companies. He’s also the chair of the Scrum Foundation and he’s a senior adviser and Agile coach for us here at OpenView Venture Partners. In fact, Jeff leads a monthly Scrum master and product owner trainings right here in OpenView offices, and he’s kindly taking a break from one of those to talk with us right now.
Jeff, thank you very much for being here, for taking the time.
Jeff: Yeah, thanks for doing this Jonathan.
Jonathan: The topic we’ll be discussing today is one I’m really excited about. It’s examples of Agile done right, and Agile gone bad. This is something, I know, that comes up a lot in the trainings. People always like to hear about examples of Scrum and Agile in action, and lately there’s been one very prominent example of Agile gone bad that I’m curious to hear your thoughts about. Can you talk a little bit about healthcare.gov, what went wrong and how better Agile practices could have maybe helped avoid what’s become a really notorious software disa...