Zombie Scrum Survival Guide

Christiaan Verwijs aims to unleash organizational superpowers. He is co-founder of The Liberators, experienced Scrum Master, developer, Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) and Steward of the Professional Scrum Master II course at Scrum.org. He has spoken at Scrum Day Europe (2013-2018), XP Days 2017, and Liberating Structures Global Gathering 2018. Verwijs founded the Dutch Liberating Structures User Group (900+ members) and Liberators Network Meetup (250+ members). He blogs at medium.com/the-liberators and zombiescrum.org. Johannes Schartau is an Agile Coach, consultant, and facilitator who helps humans fight boredom and mindlessness on all scales, from individual to team to enterprise. He is Founder of the Liberating Structures User Group Hamburg (1,300+ members), as well as organizer and facilitator at numerous Liberating Structures Immersion Workshops. He writes at zombiescrum.org, and co-authored Liberating Strategy: Surprise and Serendipity Put to Work with Liberating Structures co-developer Keith McCandless. Barry Overeem specializes in liberating organizations from outdated modes of working and learning. He is co-founder of The Liberators, experienced Scrum Master and facilitator, Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) and Steward of the Professional Scrum Master II course at Scrum.org. He has spoken at Scrum Day Europe (2013-2018), XP Days (2014-2018), and Agile/Scrum events in Spain, Ireland, London, Germany, Prague, Turkey, and elsewhere. He writes at medium.com/the-liberators and zombiescrum.org, founded the Dutch Liberating Structures User Group and Liberators Network Meetup, and has run many Liberating Structures Immersion Workshops.

• Foreword by Dave West xiiiForeword by Henri Lipmanowicz xviiAcknowledgments xixAbout the Authors xxi Chapter 1: Getting Started 1 Purpose of This Book 4 Do You Need This Book? 5 How This Book Is Organized 6 No Time to Lose: Off You Go! 8 Chapter 2: First Aid Kit 11Part I: (Zombie) Scrum 13Chapter 3: A Primer on Zombie Scrum 15 The State of Scrum 17 Zombie Scrum 18 Is There Hope for Zombie Scrum? 24 Experiment: Diagnose Your Team Together 25 Now What? 29 Chapter 4: The Purpose of Scrum 31 It's All about Complex Adaptive Problems 32 Problems 33 Complex, Adaptive Problems 34 Complexity, Uncertainty, and Risk 35 Empiricism and Process Control Theory 36 Empiricism and the Scrum Framework 37 What the Scrum Framework Makes Possible 38 Scrum: An Evolving Set of Minimal Boundaries to Work Empirically 39 Zombie Scrum and the Efficiency Mindset 40 What about Simple Problems? 42 Now What? 44 Part II: Build What Stakeholders Need 45Chapter 5: Symptoms and Causes 47 Why Bother Involving Stakeholders? 49 Who Are the Stakeholders, Actually? 50 Why Are We Not Involving Stakeholders? 52 Healthy Scrum 68 Now What? 71 Chapter 6: Experiments 73 Experiments: Getting to Know Your Stakeholders 74 Experiments: Involving Stakeholders in Product Development 81 Experiments: Keeping Your Focus on What Is Valuable 88 Now What? 96 Part III: Ship It Fast 97Chapter 7: Symptoms and Causes 99 The Benefits of Shipping Fast 102 The Bottom Line: Not Shipping Fast Is a Sign of Zombie Scrum 105 Healthy Scrum 116 Now What? 121 Chapter 8: Experiments 123 Experiments to Create Transparency and Urgency 124 Experiments for Starting Shipping More Often 131 Experiments for Optimizing Flow 141 Now What? 150 Part IV: Improve Continuously 153Chapter 9: Symptoms and Causes 155 Why Bother Improving Continuously? 157 Why Are We Not Improving Continuously? 163 Healthy Scrum 179 Now What? 182 Chapter 10: Experiments 183 Experiments for Encouraging Deep Learning 183 Experiments for Making Improvements Tangible 190 Experiments for Gathering New Information 195 Experiments to Create a Learning Environment 200 Now What? 204 Part V: Self-Organize 205Chapter 11: Symptoms and Causes 207 Why Bother Self-Organizing? 209 Why Are We Not Self-Organizing? 217 Healthy Scrum: What Self-Organization Looks Like 234 Now What? 238 Chapter 12: Experiments 239 Experiments to Increase Autonomy 239 Experiments to Encourage Self-Organization 246 Experiments to Promote Self-Alignment 254 Find Local Solutions 259 Now What? 263 Chapter 13: The Road to Recovery 265 A Global Movement 266 What If Nothing Helps? 267 More Resources 268 Closing Words 268 Index 271