and let’s not forget, the drama that comes with it.
I usually write out of experience or spite. It is the week before Christmas and I am feeling a bit inspired, after all, I am sure that most of you have already had the dreaded “let's set the Q1 goals” conversation. I say dreaded because it can go very positively or very negatively.
Let me set the mood…most of the people have already taken a week off, there is a general serenity in the air, a typical calm before the storm. Regardless, we are ready to have the turturkeykey.
What I want to explore today
I want to talk about:
- How a scrum is a deadline-less approach.
- Why deadlines are important, especially when stakeholders depend on them.
- How can we meet in the middle because we are not purists and we just want to get the job done.
Obviously, there would not be a need to have this if your stakeholders are behind you on your scrum approach, but let’s face it, you are here because that is not happening, so let's move on. We pick our battles, I guess...
Scrum is a deadline-less approach
Yes, it is, you work in scrum team, in sprints, and the goals of the sprint are defined, based on the backlog prioritization. You obviously do not know what you will be doing next month, as technically that is beyond your worry.
I know, I am pointing the obvious, but yet, I wanted to make sure that this is actually the “obvious” that we are talking about
Why deadlines are important
Because stakeholders depend on them. Your product team wants to launch a new product, your marketing team needs to buy all those very expensive media buying and most importantly, your investors want to make money.
Right, duh…
How can we meet in the middle?
BEHOLD — STRATEGIC GOALS! (don't block/report/spam me here)
Bear with me.
No, I mean if you look at the classical project delivery lifecycle, you have a start and an end for the part that is clear. Other iterations are considered different projects.
From the scrum perspective, rather than project, you have a goal. This goal is mainly related to the product…or the project…or both.
If you continue the abstraction, the only difference here is how you handle your short term aka sprint, and not about your long term.
So what we have achieved until now is that scrum focuses on short-term goals and deadlines can be short-term and long-term.
I want to focus on the long-term goals — aka strategic goals.
If your stakeholders are focused on the short-term goals, translate them into backlog prioritization meetings and stop it with the drama. Your answer should be — it will be done this sprint or not this sprint — potentially next sprint.
Those juicy long-term goals.
They can be actually planned. Now out of your scrum team roles, this is a product owner drama other than anything else.
So dearest product owner, here are some notes that may help you on your juicy-long-term-strategic-planning-drama-goals:
- Do not be precise on those long-term goals. If you commit to delivering on the 10th of august, you are going to have a bad time.
- Streamline your backlog towards those goals, and if you do so, it will be very clear when your directions are far away from your committed goals. At this point, you, with your stakeholders have to agree on where you want to go, either the direction that the sprints are pointing or the committed goals. Remember, goals change.
- Communicate openly what is happening and why.
- Estimate broadly and continuously adjust.
- As always, cut your scope to less as much as possible, and as much as you can. I know that you want that fancy feature, but as we are here, met in the middle, it’s either that or the product. In other words, learn how to do an MVP.
…on the point of estimation
I know that to estimate something is impossible if you do not know What you will actually be doing in detail, but you can briefly estimate when you know what you will actually be doing in general.
See what I am doing here, meeting you and your stakeholders in the middle.
Your unit of measure should be in sprints multiplied with your experience and know-how of the organization. In other words, small feature, 2–3 sprints. medium features 4–6 sprints and big features 8–10 sprints.
Adjust accordingly along the way, and communicate the adjustments, as alwasy
