CAS Simulation as a Java Applet
During my Certified ScrumMaster classes we run a series of simulations to experience the behaviour of a Complex Adaptive System (CAS). We do this by having all class participants behave as agents in the system who continuously adjust their position in a container (the room) relative to two other randomly selected agents. These two other agents are known as your “best friend” and your “worst enemy” (only for the purpose of these simulations of course)!
On a course earlier this month, one of the participants was sufficient intrigued by the simulations that he decided to spend the evening after day 1 of the course coding up the simulation as a Java Applet! That participant is Paul Kelcey and you will find his simulation over here at his website.
Thanks very much to Paul for doing this. It’s fun to watch and confirms the behaviour that we experience for ourselves during a Scrum course.
Of course, as effective as a Java applet is in running a simulation with a large number of agents, it’s not the same as experiencing it for yourself with a room full of people. If you have yet to experience this, you can see a little of what these simulations look like in the following videos taken of the exercise as run by it’s creator Joseph Pelrine.
Thanks to Derek W. Wade for making these videos available.
All of this may seem quite abstract and not particularly useful to you until you start looking at the project ecosystem that you work in as a Complex Adaptive System. Socially complex. If this is the case, then it follows that ScrumMasters need to understand the nature of such an environment in order to be able to work effectively with it.
As Derek Wade notes in his blog post on this, we shouldn’t take this exercises to mean that you can simply dish out rules and expect everyone to follow them. People aren’t machines (or ants). Following such rules involves a genuine shift in behaviours and habits by those involve. This is where team building, regular reflection and coaching are so important in succeeding with agile in this – the age of complexity.
You can find an interview with Joseph discussing Complex Adaptive Systems and its application in an agile work environment over at InfoQ.
Scrum Gathering = Summer of Love mixed with great content
The biggest gathering of Scrum practitioners occurred earlier this month in Orlando, Florida and I was lucky enough to be there along with only a couple of other Australians.
Overall, I have to say that this was the most enjoyable of the gatherings that I have participated in to date. Krishan Mathis of Scrum Center responded to my comment that it felt like the best Scrum Gathering ever with:
There certainly is a great feeling in the air at these events. A Scrum Gathering simply doesn’t feel like a conventional conference… because it isn’t. Tom Mellor made this point during his closing remarks and Karen Graves captured this nicely in her summary of the gathering.
Here are some of my most vivid memories from the gathering.
- Harrison Owen’s keynote which was a provocative wake-up call on social complexity and self-organisation straight out of his classic book, Wave Rider: Leadership for High Performance in a Self-Organizing World. Whilst a lot of people focus on Harrison’s invention of Open Space Technology, I think that his thoughts on self-organisation are also very relevant for Scrum practitioners.
- Seeing Jeff Sutherland more impassioned and animated than I’ve ever seen him before during his joint keynote on Scrum and CMMI.
- Lyssa Atkins taking me into a calm and self-reflective state in her Coaching the Coaches deep dive.
- Joseph Pelrine finding time to deep dive into the ABIDE model/’stove’ for working in a socially complex environment using case studies from the Scrum Development list and the archetypes from Fearless Change.
- My former colleagues Simon Bennett and Mark Summers with their Incentive Trap simulation which saw team outcome-based incentive structures produce 50-60 units of value whilst my team with a typical role-based incentive scheme produce 0 units! You can find a post about the experience on Mark’s blog.
- Discussing an Australian Scrum Gathering with the Scrum Alliance and the small contingent of Aussies at the gathering. Stay tuned for a exciting announcement about this soon.
- Christoph Mathis describing the experience of expanding the Scrum implementation at SAP in “Introducing Scrum at a rate of thousands of developers a year”.
- Lyssa Atkins describing the challenge of unwinding command and control tendencies as she did in transitioning from traditional Project Manager to Agile Coach.
- Mike Cottmeyer with the most tightly orchestrated Pecha Kucha delivery that I can imagine with timed slide transitions and with him repeatedly turning to point to slides that had arrived on screen just a second before!
- Dan Rawsthorne with his whirlwind tour of Scrum metrics and enhancement to commonly used metrics which require follow-up study of the slides to fully appreciate.
- Simon Roberts giving me a demo an exciting new presentation tool called Prezi.
- The raw passion and energy of Alan Cyment and Tobias Mayer who just couldn’t stop themselves experimenting with Scrum games – even after the gathering had finished!
The full gathering program is available from the Scrum Hub. Many of the presentation materials are available from the Resources section under the 2010 Orlando Gathering tag.
Simulating Scrum using Lego
2010 sees Scrum WithStyle adding some some exciting new activities to our training. One that has proven particularly worthwhile is a multi-team Scrum simulation using Lego. As trainer, I play Product Owner and provide the teams with a vision and an initial Product Backlog. The teams then clarify the User Stories and we capture the Product Owner’s decisions on the requirements as Conditions of Satisfaction. The teams estimate the stories before the Product Owner re-prioritises. The teams do some Sprint Planning and commit to certain Product Backlog Items. Then we’re off and Sprinting. Sprint Reviews, Retrospectives and updating the Release Burndown complete the process miniature. It’s amazing what Scrum teams can achieve in two or three 5 minute sprints!
Here’s a photo of an in-house class in Perth who built ‘Scrumville’ out of lego. This came at the conclusion of a week of training including Effective User Stories for Agile Requirements, Certified ScrumMaster and Agile Estimating and Planning courses. I really enjoyed our week exploring and experiencing Scrum and the Lego simulation brings it all together.
Balls in the air at Old Parliament House
It was a pleasure to kick off the new year of Scrum training at the country’s original seat of federal political power: Old Parliament House. Astute readers may recall a previous visit described on the Software WithStyle blog. Some of you may also know that Canberra is my home town and as such it is particularly rewarding to return there to help organisations improve their agility.
Since the weather was so fine and sunny in Canberra, we chose to step outside for many of the group exercises – including the Ball Point Game. The following photo was taken directly after that activity and added a splash of colour and movement to the famous front entrance.
New year, new name
With the new year comes a new company name and a new website. Welcome to the new home of Scrum WithStyle Pty Ltd – formerly Software WithStyle. The name change reflects the growing use of Scrum outside of software development and better conveys the focus of the company.
Scrum WithStyle picks up where Software WithStyle left off in 2009, providing Scrum and Scrum-related services including training, coaching and consulting throughout Australia and New Zealand.
2010 is shaping up to be a big year for Scrum with the method reaching a new level of mainstream adoption in Australasia, visits by top Scrum luminaries, exciting new initiatives from the Scrum Alliance and new offerings from Scrum WithStyle just to name a few likely developments.
Stay tuned for more frequent Scrum news and discussion here at the Scrum WithStyle blog.