How to explain Agile and Scrum to your grandpa in 5 mins. And to better understand both yourself
Unraveling the complexities of Agile and Scrum can be a daunting task. But what if you could simplify it enough to explain to your grandpa in just 5 minutes? Let's embark on this journey of demystifying these methodologies, enhancing our own understanding in the process.
When you can’t explain something in simple terms, you begin suspecting that something might be off.
In agile, if you had a common issue and would find a solution to it, stop and write it down, not think
- The “shuhari principle”: you are not allowed to turn on your common sense
To agile or not to agile?
When we have limited resources, we become more flexible and go agile
- Common sense is more important than anything else, including agile itself
- If we don’t know whether or not we need the product in the first place, or what the product should look like, we are better off building it in an agile way
- Any experimental project needs an agile approach
- What we need here is good project management
Explaining agile to grandpa
As a product owner, you take care of what the house will look like
- Your discussion at the beginning of each week is a sprint planning
- Each fortnight before your wife’s visit is the length of your sprint
- You should plan your sprint in a way that would allow you to always have something to show to her
- When we need to build something quickly and cheap, we find flexible solutions intuitively
Historical Background
While colonizing America, settlers traveled to the West, far away from civilization. They were limited in resources and time, and had to construct a dwelling before the winter.
- Gradnpa, developers never have enough resources to do all they want, so they found a flexible approach and called it ‘agile’.
- Agile is flexibility out of necessity. It’s being prepared to live in a small house first, meet your team often, work with those who can do several things at once, and add changes as you go.