In Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time, Jeff Sutherland shares his thoughts about how to set the right priorities.
As he explains, “The important thing, though, is just to begin. Just start…You don’t need to devote a lot of time to planning, reflection, meditations, mission statements, or five-year projections. Leave all that to the competition, and let them eat your dust. And along the way, why don’t you make a world a better place?”
Jeff offers these seven guidelines:
o Make a list. Check It Twice: “Create a list of everything that could possibly be done on a project. Then prioritize it. Put the items with the highest value and lowest risk at the top of that Backlog, then the next, and then the next.”
o The Product Owner: “She translates vision into Backlog. She needs to understand the business case, the market, and the customer.”
o A Leader Isn’t a Boss: “A Product Owner sets out what needs to be done and why. How the team accomplishes it and who accomplishes it are up to the team.”
o The Product Owner: “Has knowledge of the domain and the power to make final decisions. He or she is available to answer questions and is accountable for delivering value.”
o Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA): See the whole strategic picture, but act tactically and quickly.”
o Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt: “It’s better to give than receive. Get inside your competition’s OODA loop and wrap them up in their own confusion.”
o Get Your Money for Nothing, and Your Change for Free: Create new things only as long as those new things deliver value. Be willing to swap them out for things that require equal effort. What in the beginning you thought was needed is never what is needed.”
All this is explained in detail in the book.
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Jeff Sutherland is the co-creator of the Scrum methodology and a leading expert on how the framework has evolved to meet the needs of today’s business. The methodology he developed in 1993 and formalized in 1995 with Ken Schwaber has since been adopted by the vast majority of software development companies around the world. But Jeff realized that the benefits of Scrum are not limited to software and product development. He has adapted this successful strategy for several other industries including: finance, healthcare, higher education and telecom. As the CEO of Scrum Inc. and the Senior Advisor and Agile Coach to OpenView Venture Partners, Jeff sets the vision for success with Scrum. He continues to share best practices with organizations around the globe and has written extensively on Scrum rules and methods.
I highly recommend Jeff’s book, Scrum, as well as John Kotter’s A Sense of Urgency and XLR8: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World. Also, All In: How the Best Managers Create a Culture of Belief and Drive Big Results, co-authored by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton.