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