Between Scrum and scaled Scrum, there is Turbo Scrum
It’s a Story as Old as Software Development
- A software department overwhelmed with work and with increasing demands.
- A Development Team overworked and underappreciated
- An organisation frustrated by the inability of the software department to deliver much needed products, features or fixes.
- A customer base that becomes more unhappy day by day.
Most software professionals recognise the picture. Our organisations want more and they want it now.
If you’re in that space today, then Turbo Scrum may be the very solution you’re looking for.
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One
On a visit to a client’s site, I was speaking with John, the head of the software department. He told me of the sheer amount of work the department was straining under. Clients were unhappy. The sales team were unhappy. The CEO was unhappy. The cause for this unhappiness was firmly rooted in the inability of the software department to deliver new features, new products and bug fixes. John had been feeling the pressure.
His department had upward of 14 Scrum teams and a large number of products. Despite his best efforts, the department never seemed to make progress. The teams worked hard but never seemed to make headway. Frustration continued to build. The CEO promised new features and the software department couldn’t find the time to work on them. The sales team promised new products but the development team were simply too busy maintaining the software. The software team promised bug fixes but for every defect fixed, even more popped up in their place.
The developers felt like they were on a death march. No matter what they did, it was never enough. It was a thankless task. Morale was poor and people were leaving.
There is a Silver Bullet, Right?
But that day, John had a twinkle in his eye. He was excited about a new idea he’d had to address the problem. He was going to scale Scrum. Scaling Scrum would give him more productivity and that’s exactly what he needed. He looked at me expectantly. He wanted me to agree with his idea. But, I couldn’t. I thought he would be making a mistake.
Scaled Scrum – The Universal Panacea?
While Scrum is described in a single guide and is simple to learn, scaled Scrum has no single guide, is harder to learn and even harder to implement successfully. Additionally, the performance gains of a scaled approach are non-linear and it’s easy to end up in a situation where adding more people or more teams simply freezes output as complexity overwhelms the ability to deliver.
By this stage, you may well be wondering: ‘Is there anything we can do to improve performance significantly with Scrum teams, before making the jump to a scaled approach’?
Before You Scale
In Scrum.org’s training material for the Nexus, delegates are advised to consider precisely that question BEFORE they start scaling.
The next advised step is to use techniques that will eke more performance from your Scrum team. The Scaled Professional Scrum course leaves it to the course delegates to discuss and decide which techniques would work best for them.
Performance Techniques
Enter Turbo Scrum, which is designed to fill the gap between Scrum and scaled Scrum. It presents different techniques to help you get more from your current Scrum setup without having to scale. It can save you time. It can save you money. It can save you from added complexity.
Turbo Scrum presents over 30 leadership and technical techniques that are designed to improve the ability of software teams to deliver. Through a mix of empirical data, science, references and exercises, the veracity of these techniques is examined and proven. Some of these techniques can be implemented straight away for an immediate return on investment. Others take longer to implement but deliver enhancements over a longer period of time. But crucially, delegates get all the information they need to choose the right techniques for their unique environment.
The Turbo Scrum Course
Turbo Scrum is not about presenting dry facts and figures. The focus is on helping you to retain the information and the course makes extensive use of business exercises and simulations to achieve that aim.
Who This Course is For
Despite the name, this course is not limited to those practicing Scrum, or those that have not yet scaled Scrum. This course is designed for anyone involved in software delivery, no matter the current state, but may especially benefit CTOs, CIOs, Heads of Department (Software), Certified Scrum Trainers (CSTs), Professional Scrum Trainers (PSTs), Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters, Software Team Leaders, Scrum Practitioners and Software developers. In short, anyone involved with software that has an interest in improving performance.
Course Benefits
At the end of this course, delegates will have been introduced to over 30 technical and leadership techniques. Each technique is independent and provides potential time and cost savings as well as potential performance improvements.
Delegates will have the information that enables them to do more with what they have. Applying one, or more, of the techniques presented in the course will improve the ability of software teams to deliver. The time savings alone will more than recoup the cost of the course many times over.
The Early Adopters Benefits
You can be one of the first to experience Turbo Scrum when it’s made available to the public in June 2019. The course will be held over two days at the prestigious RAF Club in Mayfair.
There are multiple discounts available:
- 50% discount available for Early Adopters until 30 April 2019
- 56% discount for current Scrum Alliance CSPs or Scrum.org PSM II
- 75% discount for current Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Trainer or Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainers.
The number of spaces is limited and seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis. You won’t want to miss out on this great opportunity so do sign up now. I look forward to meeting you.