“Scrum is very good for progress and team spirit.”
“We are excited about scrum as a tool for creating progress in product innovation. This method was originally designed for software development. Scrum allows you to work iteratively (step by step) with your team toward an end product, so you can make regular adjustments. It works especially well if you work with your team together in one room. Still, the “official” scrum method cannot be adopted one-to-one for product innovation. A crucial difference from software development is that within product innovation we face a hard line at some point. We are tied to the production process and aim for a product that ultimately meets all requirements. In execution, we deploy scrum in many of our projects as a tool for creating progress, oversight and team spirit in multidisciplinary teams. In the video, you’ll see how a scrum board not only provides an overview of shared short-term (sprint) goals but also the status of all team members’ actions. One to three times a week we hold a standup meeting. Then we stand around the scrum board with everyone contributing to the project and ask ourselves the questions, ‘Where are you at right now, what are you up against and where are you going?'”
Stick behind the door
“The beauty of a scrum board is: you all create it together, it gives an overview and it makes it clear where you stand. It all starts with creating a sprint schedule, where you set sprint goals and associated actions. We usually work with three-week sprints. In these, you can work toward, for example, a sample, a prototype, a test report, or a decision moment. Team members have to write, hang and move their own actions. This forces everyone to become very concrete and committed. The other day, for example, a team member had set a goal but not put up any actions. This gives me as a process facilitator the opportunity to ask, “Explain to the team how you are going to get to the goal, who or what do you need to do that? Because it is important that everyone can see on the board what is going to happen and what they might be able to help with. That visual overview with all the open tasks works very well as a stick.”
Open Mindset
“The scrum board also gives a clear picture of the relationships between actions and the various departments. If someone does or does not do something, it can affect the actions of others. For example, during the fine-tuning of goals and associated actions, fun discussions sometimes arise. ‘I’m going to test in the third week.’ ‘I can’t, because I still have to screw the parts together.’
I often notice that team members are not used to working together on actions and goals in this way. It requires a certain mindset because by being open about what you do on a day-to-day basis, you do give a glimpse into your kitchen. For some people, this feels like an open door for criticism or a restriction of freedom. Therefore, as a process facilitator, it is important to work to create a code of conduct and a safe atmosphere where team members are happy to share knowledge and are allowed to give each other feedback. At the end of each sprint, there is room for feedback on the team’s cooperation and working methods. We look back on the sprint during a so-called retrospective. Then we discuss: How do we work together and what could be better? The active involvement of the team members and the ownership of the partial actions really makes scrum a process of co-creation.”
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