Scrum for One

That's a funny word, isn't it? "Scrum." Scrum is a projection management strategy for software development teams. The name comes from rugby (I guess) where it refers to the start of a new play. In the programming world, it's a technique of coordinating a team'southward piece of work without a clear plan, working towards attainable short-term goals, and then repeating the process towards another set of goals – which I suppose is kind of like playing towards a goal in rugby. Except, y'all know – fewer cleaved basic. Hopefully.

I'm not part of a software development team. I'g not fifty-fifty a programmer. But when I came across an article on Scrum recently, it struck me that, while intended for big, collaborative projects, there were a lot of elements of Scrum that could be adapted pretty well to individual productivity. Although Scrum tin be implemented at any stage of a projection, information technology actually excels every bit a way of dealing with projects that have stalled out for some reason – projects that have gotten stuck for lack of resources, lack of direction, even lack of teamwork – and that's something that happens to all of us at one time or another. Perchance, just maybe, the principles that get teams of programmers dorsum on runway tin can employ to the projects every one of us has gotten stuck on.

Scrum 101

Although there are whole textbooks devoted to managing teams and their projects using Scrum, the basic principles are very simple:

• Practice what you lot can with what you take. Projects stall considering some resources – whether it'southward material, knowledge, or manpower – is missing. Usually, though, there are plenty of things that can be done even without those resources – other parts of the system to build, creative workarounds, standards to devise, and and then on. During the planning of each phase, and in daily "check-in" meetings along the fashion, these shortfalls are taken into business relationship and work designed around them and so that a lack of resources doesn't accept to create a lack of progress.
• Abiding feedback. Equally I just mentioned, Scrum encourages daily contact between its squad-members, then that a) nobody stalls and holds up the whole project, and b) the collective knowledge of the whole team can be brought to bear on new issues in artistic ways. Meetings are brusk, as short equally 15 minutes, and center effectually three questions:
  1. What have you accomplished so far?
  2. What volition you accomplish today?
  3. What'south preventing y'all from making progress right now?

  These unproblematic questions are meant to identify any "logjams" and suspension them upwards earlier they agree up the entire project.

• Work towards conspicuously-defined short-term goals. Scrum projects are, generally-speaking, betoken-releases of the software under development – that is, they are significant but relatively elementary evolutionary improvements of the land of the project at the beginning of the project. For example, a set of new functions could be implemented, an interface designed, a database structure mapped out, and so on. "Write browser" is likewise big of a project, information technology's realization besides far off, to make for a meaningful Scrum project; "correct bug in line 1178" too small. Ideally, equally each project is completed, the software under development should be in a usable country – Scrum was developed to bargain with the contingencies of the software earth, where projects oftentimes need to be rushed into market to combat a competing project, or just to bring in an income.
• Dart. The bones working unit of measurement of Scrum is the Sprint – a focused dash towards the completion of the immediate projection goals. At the showtime of the Sprint, the team determines exactly what resources are available to them, what they intend to achieve given those resources, and how long they'll work on it. Then, they piece of work on those objectives, and those objectives only . The Sprint is sacrosanct – its members work on the project they've put together and nothing else until the Sprint is completed. Information technology might exist a calendar week, information technology might be 30 days, or anywhere in betwixt – whatsoever time they've agreed on is dedicated solely to the Sprint. When it'south washed, squad members might rotate out of or into the squad, or be assigned to other projects, but until then – they Sprint.

Scrumming Solo

Seems to me that, with a fiddling modification, those are pretty skillful principles for anyone with some big projects on their plate – especially if you, like me, have a tendency to get side-railed. Of form, nearly of our projects aren't collaborative, and they're rarely as compartmentalized as calculator programs, either. The idea of developing a project by evolutionary steps, with each footstep creating a potentially usable end-product, simply doesn't apply to the kind of long-term projects virtually of us have every bit individuals – things like writing a book, learning a strange language, or earning a promotion.

But the idea of Scrum is, I call up, very applicable to our personal lives. The whole betoken is, through a process of abiding self-awareness, to identify what's belongings us back, how we can work around it, and where the next few days or weeks should take us. Consider, so, "Scrum for Ane":

• Do what yous can with what you have. There are leap to be hang-ups in any project worth doing, and information technology's all too easy to look at a projection and despair because y'all don't have whatever you need to finish it. Well, y'all may not accept what you need to finish, simply chances are you have what yous need to start, to do at least some of the steps needed to get yourself somewhere close to the finish line. And you can take middle from this peculiarity of Scrum: often, when working nether less than ideal circumstances without all the necessities to stop a projection, Scrum teams observe that either a new solution emerges that's much more within their grasp or, just as often, that the missing element isn't really needed in the kickoff place. At the worst, you'll give yourself the time you need to come up up with the missing piece – and meanwhile yous'll be moving inexorably closer to your goal.
• Constant cocky-reflection. If yous're a fan of Allen, Covey, or Drucker, you've probably already accustomed the importance of a weekly review. Scrum for One suggests that more than frequent reflection might be helpful – nothing at the scale of a full weekly review, but a few moments of honesty each morning to define the work in front of you lot and whatsoever problems that might exist standing in the way. Begin a few minutes to see if you tin can solve the event, and if not, put it in your to-exercise list for later activity. A lot of fourth dimension, merely request "What'south standing in my way?"is enough to trigger a solution – generally, the trouble lies more than in ourselves than in our situation.
• Piece of work towards clearly-defined, short-term goals. Requite yourself a time limit and fix a reasonable goal – reasonable, but meaningful – to attain past the end of that menstruum. Projects that stretch out in front of you for months or years are discouraging (which is why so few people write books) while projects that are too small often aren't very satisfying to complete.
• Sprint. Sprinting the way Scrum teams practice it won't actually work for individuals – yous probably accept a lot of dissimilar roles to play on a twenty-four hours-to-day footing, which means focusing on a unmarried projection to the exclusion of everything else is going to be difficult, if its even possible. What you tin do, though, is cake out a number of hours every twenty-four hour period and apply them to focus strictly on one project – no distractions, no knocking off early on, no zip until y'all reach your goal.

Obviously this isn't annihilation like a complete productivity system, but information technology's interesting nonetheless. Scrum is a very effective way of managing projects, and is used by software giants like Microsoft as well equally tiny first-ups and everything in between. If null else, side by side time you lot're stuck, ask yourself the unproblematic question, "What's standing in my mode right now?" and see if that doesn't lead to "OK, what am I going to do well-nigh information technology?"

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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/scrum-for-one.html

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