A question that I often receive when I am training people on Scrum, is why I chose Scrum instead of all the other methods, and what inspired me to follow this path. My initial response is that yes I am aware that there are a wide array of methods out there and I have even used some of them like Kanban. Extreme Programming, and Scaling approaches. They are all great and better than nothing, but in the end I’ll always choose Scrum. 

Why? 

Scrum Inspired Me 

My love for Scrum all started when I was working as Project Manager and noticing things that I didn’t like in the business, which I then figured out ways to make them better. Once I was given that trust, I became really passionate about making meaningful impact in the business and became sort of fixated on improving things, which in retrospect became a healthy obsession of mine. And so I kept going back and looking for ways to improve the issues that I identified. This is when I really started to build momentum and gain a fan base in the office because I was bringing value to the team and organisation as a whole.

I was going above and beyond to maximise the value I was bringing to the business. I therefore soon realised that I enjoyed Project Management and what it allowed me to do from a professional standpoint. I was determined to excel in this role and so I spent a lot of additional time conducting research on Prince2, Lean, and Six Sigma. This required a lot of focus and attention to detail on my part but nonetheless it was absolutely rewarding. 

Soon after, this concept of ‘Agile’ came into the mix and everybody was talking about it like it was the new kid on the block. So when I eventually had the privilege of learning about it, they put me on some projects whereby we were doing Automation and fixing errors. And before we knew it, we were generating value. This was when we knew we had landed on something big! We even made our own separate department for it – we called it the ‘Agile Organisation.’ 

I even remember sitting down with my Director one day and having a discussion with him about what a Product Owner and Scrum Master is, and how we could implement Agile ways of working into the organisation. But I knew I had a lot to learn.

This was when I enrolled into a Scrum Course that was led by Henrik Nyberg. And even though this was an advanced class and I was completely out of depth, I showed up for the challenge anyway. I will always be grateful for Henrik for taking me on for the course despite my lack of experience and knowledge. I say this because he took me under his wing and was always keen to answer any questions I had. He taught me aspects of Scrum I had no idea of and still apply to this day. Every day I had questions and everyday he answered them to the best of his best ability. I was completely inspired!

Scrum Increased My Salary

Besides the enormous benefits that I had learned Scrum could bring to a team and business as a whole, I had also learned that being skilled and experienced in Scrum could be quite lucrative too. For example, when I started to learn about the salaries of my colleagues that were doing Scrum in the US, it motivated me even more to get on board because at the time I was being severely underpaid in my other role. 

So, once I completed the Scrum course, I went to my bosses and told them that they were not paying me enough, presented them with the figures of how the application of Scrum could benefit the business and requested a salary increase.

Unfortunately, this did not go as planned, and I was forced to look elsewhere. But when I finally did get the opportunity to work as a Scrum Master, I saw my salary skyrocket. So yes, one of the other reasons why I chose Scrum was because of the financial benefits it gave me. 

Scrum Increased My Team’s Efficiency and Outputs

Scrum is great because it gives you just enough to get you going and provides flexible guidelines that will help you figure out what works for you. I also found that it is more generous with mistakes and facilitates opportunities for growth and change. For example, many times in my career as a Scrum Master I had to make tweaks or adjustments to issues that arose during product development, and those decisions were not always easy due to time sensitivity but I felt that the guidelines of Scrum helped me to navigate through those challenging moments.  

So, in summary, what I like about Scrum thus far is that it: 

🚀 Provides actionable guidelines. 

🚀 Supports discovery and innovation. 

🚀 Allows change

🚀 Helps identify where you need to go. 

Are you interested in learning more about Scrum and its benefits? 

Get in touch today and let’s work together on your journey to success! 

Pragmatic Shift is a Scrum Training, Agile Consulting, and Agile Coaching consultancy that specialises in delivering Scrum.Org certified scrum courses, and helping organisations increase their business agility and product development success through agile consulting and coaching.

We firmly believe that a shift to agile is a pragmatic shift. A natural evolution from traditional project management and product management. A proven, reliable, and resilient framework for addressing compelling problems and developing complex solutions.

Over a decade’s worth of experience as an agile practitioner, agile consultant, agile coach, and scrum trainer informs our pragmatic approach to change. Agile dogma has no value in the context of product development or organisational change.

Instead, we look to start where you are, work with what you have, and make meaningful interventions that align with the objectives you are trying to achieve.

Progress over perfection.

If this sounds like a pragmatic solution to you, visit the following pages for more information.

Scrum Training: https://pragmaticshift.com/training/
Agile Consulting: Coming Soon!
Agile Coaching: https://www.thescrumcoach.uk

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