Krishna: The Ultimate ScrumMaster chosen by Pandavas (The Team)

Krishna: The Ultimate ScrumMaster chosen by Pandavas (The Team)

As per Vedas, somewhere around 5000 years back, Mahabharat (Kurukshetra war) battle had been fought. There were so many sequential events which led to the circumstances where battle became inevitable. There were 2 sides Kauravas & Pandavas. Both the armies (teams) participated in the event. We all know this.

Have you ever analysed the role of “Krishna” in that battle (event)? What he did? What he thought and to what was he accountable? Let’s see!

1-      Krishna did not fight the battle himself.

2-      He aligned Pandavas to the goal (which is actually not winning the battle rather re-installing the ‘Dharma’ on the Earth).

3-      He facilitated all the discussion among Pandavas to find the solution of problem. He took Pandavas on the same page and let them take the collective decision what to do next.

4-      Only when Pandavas were not able to take any decision, he ‘suggested’ the action-items.

5-      When Arjuna put down his weapons, he asked Arjuna to fight not-to-win but for the goal which “re-installation of Dharma”. He re-installed the Commitment, Courage & Focus among the Pandavas (the team).

Krishna was accountable only for “re-installing the Dharma” and keeping team motivated towards this goal for which he made Pandavas:-

a)       Committed towards the goal

b)      Focused towards the goal

c)       Courageous enough to proceed towards the goal (Here, pandavas were courageous enough to fight but when Arjuna saw relatives other end, Krishna made him & other courageous enough to take step which are required to achieve goal which is re-installing Dharma.)  

d)      Open enough so that they can say/suggest what they think

e)      Respecting each other’s quality among them. (E.g. – Yudhishthir every time spoke truth which created tough situations to handle. But other Pandavas supported their eldest brother.)

This battle had been fought for 18 days and after each day’s fight, Krishna facilitated discussion for Pandavas to inspect the incident and adapt & prepare for next day. He instilled the quality of ‘Empiricism’ (learn from today’s experience and plan for tomorrow accordingly) among the members.

I could see this as the qualities of ScrumMaster. The 2 things:-

1-      Reveal - not resolve, and

2-      Actively doing nothing

are something on which facilitation is based. Krishna was truly a facilitator for Pandavas during the complete event by: -

-          keeping them focused towards the goal (again, not winning but to re-install the Dharma)

-          keeping away from external distraction

-          helping them to identify the blockers (like Bhishma, Karna) towards goal and removing them

Along with this, He made team (Pandavas) able to earn trust on each other. Everyone trusted each other. This was one of the main ingredient of their success.

If not completely, isn’t it mostly in line of ScrumMaster’s responsibility?

Krishna correctly proclaimed:

“It is not my duty to do your work (fighting the battle). I’ll show the correct path to you and set the environment in which you can fulfil your duty.”

Most importantly, he left Hastinapur when the re-installation of Dharma was achieved (the goal).

“And ScrumMaster is succeed only when team is in condition when ScrumMaster is not required.”

Learn From Google Map to Grow as SCRUM Team!

Learn From Google Map to Grow as SCRUM Team

Today, it is very common & easy to use google map navigation when you are going somewhere. Just enter your source & destination and start navigation. Right after this moment, google map will do below activities for you: -

1. Calculate Estimated Time of Arrival as per current traffic scenario;
2. Highlights the best possible path to reach destination;
3. It also mentions the other available paths in grey colour;
4. During the journey, if traffic scenarios changes on the way, google map will highlight the other best alternate route;
5. If you change the destination in middle of journey, it accepts the change and highlights the best possible route to reach changed destination;
6. Once you reach destination, it notifies the same to you;

Along with these standard steps, google-map also does: -

a)       Learn about newly created route on the way. (Eg. – On your way, one new underpass or alternative route was constructed by Govt. When you & other travellers follow that route, google-map learns that there is another route here and after significant learning, it will start suggesting this route in navigation);

b)      It keeps check on time-taken during the journey. If time-taken is more or lesser than the predicted one, it learns whether this route has some issue (like some construction is going on) or the route has been improved. Based on this learning, it adapts the new changes and provide predictions accordingly;

c)       It learns whether a path contains toll booth. Accordingly, it highlights the same thing so that you might know about other extra expenses before journey;

Apart from these, it also does number of things. However, let’s consider only these activities performed by google map.

Let’s give a thought on this, doesn’t it look like standard activities of a project (or journey of a product). During the product development, we do: -

1. Set the product vision (the destination)
2. Create plan as per available resources (people, tools, budget etc)
3. Based on the information in #1 & #2, define the roadmap and estimated time of delivery
4. Since, during the development nothing (vision, people, tools etc) will be fixed or prone to change, the teams need to adapt these changes and come out with the best possible plan in the scenario
5. Once product has significant features, it will be released to customers
6. According to the further requirements, the future development will go on
7. During the development, team learns & enhance skills which results into better & faster product delivery
8. Team can foresee the other challenges, roadblocks, extra-cost during the product development and notifies this to business.

What we have seen, is the quality of Scrum: -

Inspection, Adaption and Transparency!

Google map is the prefect example which Inspect or Retrospect the surroundings and improve its knowledge and learns from the experience (Empiricism). It Adapt the changes coming in the surroundings whether new construction, any roadblock or extra-cost requirement or the destination itself has been changed from the original destination. Having the quality of Inspection & Adaption, it truly satisfies the need of being Transparent. It is transparent to user and providing the most correct information. These are the exact virtues of Scrum Teams who learns from experience, retrospect themselves & adapt the changes, embraces the change requests coming during the product development and ensure transparency among themselves & to organization.  

Scrum Teams, if you want to learn, grow & develop as an Agile/Scrum team, analyse the activities of google map doing for you & learn from it

  

Direction is more important than speed, Really?

We have heard many times like “Direction is more important than speed. Many are going nowhere fast”.

What does this mean? Why is Direction necessary? For software products also, do we need to focus on the direction?

Let’s think about it:

1. when you are going to the office, do you take the correct turn and take the shortest path to reach the office?
2. When you are investing your money to get better ROI, do you consider the multiple investment options and pick which is the most suitable in your scenario?
3.  You get married and as a life-partners to each other, do you consider few parameters (like financials, working-life balance etc.) before starting a family?

If the answers of all these questions are “YES”, it reflects that “you are not only executing your action-items, you are also planning and setting the directions up for the future.”

Then, why should not planning & direction should be set up for the software products?

Let’s consider another point of view:

Once Charles Darwin said – “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

We always heard that “Change is the only constant”. Consider below image which showcasing the expectation-zone and product journey: -

As we see in the above image, the expectation zones are moving with time. It is true for products also. There is one set of expectation from the customer when product manufacturing starts. However, as product development goes further, the customer's expectations & requirement also change. Therefore, it is necessary to accommodate these changes in the product development phase. It is necessary to follow the right “direction” while developing the product so that maximum business value might be achieved.

Agile is a culture that facilitates the environment which embraces the changes and motivates the team to work on the most important requirement. It provides “Direction” along with speed to develop the product. (You can read more about agile at the below location: - https://agile-is-culture.blogspot.com/2018/06/agile-inculcating-culture-of-ci-cd.html )

Now, the question is how Agile facilitate such an environment which is responsible to provide the correct direction to team & product? As we already know there are 4-pillars of Agile Team:-

1- Scrum Team
2- Product Owner
3- Scrum Master
4- Stakeholders

Let's see the point-of-view of each entity: -

Scrum Team Member – “I do my work and I do it well, but my race isn’t won until all my fellow team-members cross the finish line with me. We win as a Team. I check my title (as well as ego) at the door; I am willing to do whatever it takes to help the team succeed, even if that means working outside my area of expertise or comfort zone.”

Product Owner – “I own this product and I want to see it succeed. I will only ask the team to build what has Business Value and ROI for my organization. I am a consensus builder and I love marketing and selling the value of what the Team has accomplished.”

Scrum Master – “I don’t succeed unless the Team Succeeds. My mission in life is to grease the wheels and ensure that everyone is playing nice and that the process is running smoothly.”

Stakeholder – “The Product that the Scrum Team produces for me has value, I need to be involved in providing ideas and seeing the results. Please don’t keep in dark and feed me the misinformation. I would rather be a part of development process and informed of how things are actually going, the good, the bad and the ugly.”   

As we saw, each component of Agile-Team is committed to deliver the value. They put their efforts in One-Direction which ensures that highest-possible value is produced for the business.

Agile is culture which sets the sync between the direction of product development & team's effort.

Always remember:

"You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight."  - Jim Rohn

Discussion on Agile & Technology (Layman friendly)

Go to the below link and this discussion may be helpful for you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYmDjoPHZv4