Scrum without Objective

Waterfall bad, right?  Well, to an extent it is — the good part about waterfall is that you start with a objective and build a team around an objective.  The challenge is that the interm points and progress measurements get caught up in gantt charts, absolute assignments, critical paths, etc.etc.  Of course waterfall is all about time and deadlines, so when things fall behind it’s all about finger pointing and fall guys.

Scrum is good, semi-self organized teams working on short lists of tasks.  Continual measurement of progress, yadda yadda yadda.  But, then once you’ve released what happens…   You have a two week sprint, a bunch of things a product person, if you’re lucky an engineer, has added to the sprint queue…  Rinse and repeat — but somebody has forgotten the biggest piece.

What’s the Goal?

Waterfall – simple goal is a PRD … Scrum to a point is a PRD (yes, lean ideals, it changes).  What you need to remember to create in a series of sprints is a goal for the team — why are they doing this work, to what end… If it is just the features of the week, you need to take a step back and figure out if you’re in a conifer forest or a deciduous forest, since you’re not seeing anything except trees.