Scrum Day 0 – The Search for ScrumMaster

Monday I want to kick off my first Scrum Sprint Planning Meeting and I’m getting a little… um… well… a little concerned (cough… scared really… cough). I’ve been reading when I can and am about half way through the Agile Project Management with Scrum book and really want to make this work.

The more I learn, the more I dig Scrum. The self organizing and empowered teams, the transparency, the ability to adapt to changing realities, etc. All of it sounds like something that will not only help us provide better products but also strengthen my team.

But as I read, I’m wondering if we’re not setting ourselves up for failure. The last I heard, we’re not getting “professional” help in getting up to speed on Scrum. Each Dev Manager is going to be their own ScrumMaster, and we’re (again, last I heard) going to have to learn how as we go. We may get some training, but nothing has been said for sure. And I’m supposed to be Mr. Scrum by Monday? lol… Well heck, I’m sure as hell going to try anyway. Even though I know I’m going to screw this up a bit, I’m still going to do all that I can and hopefully, as we progress, we’ll get better at it together.

Another challenge is our Product Owners. We don’t have them (yet). Well actually we do have them. We have a ton of them as a matter of fact. We have User Groups and Steering Committees filled with them… The challenge is to get the Organization to empower one, one for our Scrum teams. Also for someone to stand up and accept being the Product Owner…

So who is likely going to be the “Product Owner” for many of our/my Scrum projects? I’ll give you three guesses… (Yes, that’s right the Dev Manager).

Now we’ve already been playing this role, so we’re used to it, but I’m worried about how it will affect our ability to succeed with Scrum. The Product Owner is a critical piece of the puzzle and without a “real” one, well…

Well I need to finish moving some work items (those with attachments… sigh).

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Scrum Day –1 – Infrastructure Day
Scrum Day -2 - The Decision is Made