The Science Behind Scrum
Scrum is a flavor of agile software development. In agile the development teams are cross-functional and self-managing. The development cycles, called sprints, are short, four weeks or less. By the end of a sprint, the code must be functional, tested, and working. Scrum functions on something called empirical process control. Traditional software development (command and control) uses defined process control based on the theory of how something should work. This is at the heart of why so many traditional software projects either fail or generate bad code. Defined process control is meant to work on projects that are not very complex, tasks that do not need to be exact, like making hat pins. Empirical process control is used in serious engineering when tolerances need to be exact.
Instead of planning out your software design months in advance and guessing at what will work, like traditional software development, scrum encourages experimentation via transparency, observation, and adaptation. The saying “fail early and often” comes to mind. With scrum, one is constantly learning and improving skills, efficiency, and quality. Scrum is conducive to creating flow states which leads to mastery. A scrum is a self-organizing team or rather a team without a manager, a team that picks what work it will do and how it will do the work. Whether its creators know it or not, scrum has a lot of self-determination theory. Scrum is, in many ways, intrinsic motivation in sheep’s clothing.
I am floored that I just figured this out. I had heard of agile development and scrum but I had never read anything about it, nor have I come across it in any of my research. Scrum is rife with positive psychology, self-determination theory (SDT), behavioral economics, and cognitive neuroscience.
None of this is mentioned in any of the literature I have read, and by this point, I’ve read quite a bit. What is the benefit of using scrums to develop software? Scrum teams develop software up to 15 times faster than traditional project management processes. Holy performance increase, batman! Granted, a minimal number of teams ever get to that level. Gains of 400% are achievable by any team willing to do the work. Not only is the work done quickly, but at the end of a development iteration or sprint, the code developed is ready to ship, and it generally has fewer bugs than traditional methods.
I watched a Google Tech Talk: Self-Organization: The Secret Sauce for Improving your Scrum team by one of scrum’s creators: Jeff Sutherland. He talked about how having people co-located creates a social bond. The idea is that if people work closely together, they will care about each other, be a better team, and do better work. This comes out of behavioral economics, which tells us that we have two kinds of relationships, social relationships, and transactional relationships. Social relationships build trust and result in win-win situations. Transactional relationships build rewards and result in win-lose situations.
Agile development teams do 30% of all development. Though my research for this post indicates that only 50% of teams that call themselves agile are fully agile, and only 10% of scrums are scrums. Most teams implement some kind of less successful variant. This kills me! Implementing agile or scrum means that management has to change too much or give up too much power to fully adopt these practices, that or teams are resistant to change. Speed and quality matter, not how compliant you are with a framework.
The sacred protector of the team and scrum theory is the scrum master. Part leader, part servant, his job is to ensure the team is fully enabled to succeed and remove any impediment to their success. She does this by being an expert on the framework, genuinely caring about the team, and focusing on doing whatever it takes to make the team successful and keep them focused. It certainly would not hurt if the scrum master understood SDT, positive psychology, and behavioral economics. Though I think all leaders should.
I’m ecstatic to find evidence-based practices worming their way into the workplace! As a side benefit, it gives me something new to research and writes about. Hug your local agile programmer; they is making the world better.
We Know What Needs to Change
We know what to do. With the empirical research that’s been done on Self Determination Theory and Optimal Performance, we have more than enough data to tell us what works as far as engaging and motivating employees is concerned. We also have over 20 years of business success to back up the research.
As Dan Pink points out in Drive, there’s a knowing-doing gap between “what science knows and what business does.” The problem isn’t that we don’t know how to make work engaging, rewarding, and innovative; the problem is getting businesses to adopt these ideas.
We are still operating under Business 1.0. Corporations as we know them began about 150 years ago, and management practices have not changed much since then. Most of our businesses operate on a command and control, carrots and sticks model.
A dozen or so companies have started to transition to Business 2.0 practices, and a few have made the transition. They’ve all found their way into my previous blog posts. So what does life look like the inside of Business 2.0 companies?
Employees are measured by their results, not the number of hours they work.
They work on things they are passionate about, with who they want when they want.
They are fully engaged and look forward to working.
Busy work and nonproductive meetings are the exceptions and not the rule.
Managers act more as coaches who help their workers find their passion, and potential and push them toward higher competency levels. They work with employees to create goals just beyond the reach of their skill sets.
Titles become less important than the work, and roles change with projects.
Employees have some choice in their compensation which may reflect the level of risk and reward they are comfortable with.
Information is shared freely across the organization. It’s not compartmentalized.
Feedback is continuous, not just given during an annual review.
Turnover is less than five percent per year.
They have a clear vision that guides employee decisions so that decisions can be pushed closer to the customer.
They have rich, caring cultures that foster trust at all levels. They are more sustainable and transparent.
It sounds like the fabled Shangri-la! It’s hard for me to fathom that more organizations have not adopted practices that would foster these results. I realize that these ideas may seem unrealistic or even threatening to folks working in the average workplace. Most of us find change difficult or at least uncomfortable.
No one is more intimidated and fearful of this change than executives. They have the power, and people in power rarely give it up freely. The paradox here is that by giving up a large chunk of that power, they’d end up with more profitable and sustainable companies in the long run.
People Are Awesome
This may be the best compilation of physical mastery that I’ve seen yet. It’s an amazing video that demonstrates what can be achieved with Flow and optimal performance.
Flow, Mastery and the League of Extraordinary Dancers
The League of Extraordinary Dancers performance at the February 2010 TED is the most amazing performance I’ve ever seen. Have you ever watched the TED videos? How about the performances? I’ve overlooked the performances until last week. I recently stumbled upon The LXD (League of Extraordinary Dancers) performance at this year’s TED. LXD is an example of taking optimal experience to its outer limits.
These dancers are fully engaged in their art, they have to be extremely dedicated to develop this level of skill. Michalyi Csikszentmihalyi’s research on Flow, the science of optimal performance, says that anyone in just about any line of work can experience flow and develop mastery. His research spans fields from science and the arts to factory workers. How would you like to look forward to going to work, to get lost in your work and feel great about what you’re doing? Giving our workers the freedom to define their work and how they do it is the the way to start down this path.
Gallup has done extensive research on the engagement of the US workforce, it’s estimated that about 50% of US workers are not engaged and that 20% are actively unengaged with their work. The estimated cost to US companies for employees that aren’t into their work: 300 billion dollars a year. In some parts of the world only 3% of employees are engaged. It’s time we focused on letting our workers do work in ways they find engaging, lets put command and control to rest permanently! Are you listening managers and CEO’s?
Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi's TED Presentation
Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi's TED Presentation on creativity, fulfillment and flow. Author of "Flow, The Psychology of optimal experience"
If You Want To Hit The Target, Aim High!
I saw a Viktor Frankl video this morning on the meaning of life. Dr. Frankl was a neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor. It’s a short video and to the point. Aim high to achieve results, and the drive to find meaning in work and life is one of our highest drives.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says that to experience Flow, we must have tasks that make us reach just beyond our grasp. Tasks that are too easy don’t increase our skill levels, and we find them boring. They don’t help us grow. Ones that are too hard discourage us from trying because we’ll have more failures than successes. Tasks beyond our reach stretch us and make us better than we are. Dan Pink calls them Goldilocks tasks. Being better than we are is good, right? And it makes us feel good as well.
As we become better at what we do, we’ll become happier and more productive, and our value will increase. Self-worth and our value to the world around us will go up. As more managers and businesses adopt these ideas and prioritize Goldilocks tasks, our workplaces will become sources of meaning, not just a way to pay the bills.
