A Tool Is Just A Tool: Don’t Be A Tool When Using Scrum Tools

OK. First, yeah… the comic strip below (referencing the “Blackberry”) dates me yet again as someone who has been around professionally for a long time [linkedin.mvizdos.com].

We published the Scrum Cartoon below in 2007.

Lot’s has changed since then (phew).

One of the consistent reminders I have thrown in my face, year after year — and decade after decade — is that people love their scrum tools.

Some people reading this don’t even know what a Blackberry is / was.

This was THE tool that professionals NEEDED back in the day.

It solved a very specific problem.

And.

Like many teams I work with today, that company got wrapped around the axle to become obsolete because they focused on their solution as the only solution (they thought the idea of Apple and the iPhone was the dumbest idea around).

The tech world has an infinite graveyard of solutions for problems that no longer (or even worse, NEVER) existed.

Scrum Tools: Understand the Problem First!

Make sure you do this (see a theme here)?

I’ve written about focusing on the end user versus the customer and the importance of delivering a working Increment to get feedback by the end of each Sprint at the Sprint Review when Implementing Scrum.

If you are not solving a real problem with your solution, someone else will do that for you.

Guaranteed.

If you are create a perfect solution to a problem that does not exist, someone else will do that for you.

Guaranteed.

If you are depending on the perfect tool to help your team create a solution to a problem that does not exist for your customer or end user, someone else will solve their problem with a real working solution.

Guaranteed.

What Next?

Focus. #deliver

Have a conversation with your team and stakeholders in your organization today about using the right tools to get stuff done.

Don’t forget why you exist as a team.

Gulp.

My guess is that if you, each member of your team, and each team in your organization cannot summarize this reason in one sentence, you might be focusing on a tool (solution) to a problem that does not exist.

And that is the nail in your coffin.

Really.

I can help with the conversation.

Contact me (with feedback) or connect with me on LinkedIn to discuss this more together.

Also, check out AgileMentoring.com while you are here; it’s a great community of agile practitioners from around the world who are figuring things out together!

One final thing…

Subscribe to my weekly Saturday morning emails about Implementing Scrum in the real world. And get an “every two week” check in from me too.

What could be better?