In two days comes the new edition of “Scrum” by Claude Aubry. An edition for which Claude did me the honor of asking me for a preface. Probably too many compromising photos taken during the “raid agile”. As the foreword confirms, Scrum and agile more broadly never stop evolving. And as I say in the preface, Claude is an explorer. So this is not a new edition for the sake of a new edition, but rather the journal of the constant mutation of our practices.

Here is the preface, I hope it will invite you to buy the book :

Preface “Scrum”, by Claude Aubry, 4th edition

Scrum is a funny thing. A small thing that became enormous. A few paragraphs that revolutionize our work methods, even our lives. A few paragraphs… Initially, Scrum is a method for carrying out projects in complex, uncertain environments. This little idea has come a long way: it dethroned the methodological aristocracy in place (out with PMI, CMMi, RUP, etc.). The giants with feet of clay collapsed. As if someone had opened a window in a room closed for far too long. Helped in this by the times, these modern and uncertain times with exacerbated competition where all energies count. I know some who are laughing hard: they lifted with Scrum the veil on all the little lies of our organizations.

It’s funny too, the little guy has become the ogre. Scrum is like a black hole that swallows everything that passes near it. Claude’s book doesn’t only talk about Scrum, but about everything that Scrum symbolizes and has taken along with it in its proposal for an agile organization or project . And it’s much more than the initial few paragraphs. Without hesitation Scrum borrowed from wherever there was value. From our common sense, from other agile methods, and from elsewhere when it was worthwhile. Extreme programming is like the rude and frustrated uncle. He grumbles in his corner, Scrum would just be a sellout who forgot some of its values. Extreme programming is touchy and exclusive. But it forgets that it and Scrum are of the same family, and that their messages are similar. Scrum is just smooth- talking, and that generates jealousy. In fact, Scrum shines today. I know some who laugh hard when they discover that Scrum has become the reference method.

It’s funny, because people are wrong about Scrum. They think it’s simple, flexible and easy. Properly understood and implemented it reveals itself to be complex, rigorous and arduous. That’s the whole paradox of our methods: they are like our organizations or projects, complex. We must adapt them, focus on value, improve ourselves, try, learn from failure. This paradox is everywhere in Scrum. As mentioned, the small method became large, David, Goliath. The alternative approach became the reference. People throw themselves at it because they’ve understood that it’s the best armed to fight in today’s world. But its lightness is deceptive, because it’s indeed a sharp blade, a honed tool for applying the principles and values of agile. Many people get the direction wrong and grab it by the blade!

The success of this method could also make it obese and obsolete. In this regard, Claude’s book that you hold in your hands is a sort of antidote, a healthy foundation. We’re starting to pay the backlash of agility: too many misunderstandings, recuperations promote a completely perverted agile. This is exactly what happened to Lean in the 1990s. So to be serious, to avoid saying “agile” which scares the system in place (and yes, because it decrees the end of the previous system), people talk a lot about Lean (Another great uncle, but much older). That’s not a good reason. It’s yet another escape. Especially since the Lean being mentioned is archaic. We talk about the Lean of non-waste: we completely forget the one about respect for people and continuous improvement. The Lean of manufacturing or industry is not made for our organizations or our modern projects, don’t forget that. The period is no longer about Lean, standardization, continuous improvement on the elimination of waste through involvement and respect for people. The period is about adaptation, NON-standardization, NON-linearity, NON- repeatability, induced by the complexity of our time. That’s also this paradox: probably none of the readers of Claude’s book will apply the same flavor of Scrum. And yet are we really talking about the same thing? Yes, but everything is context and intention. We must try as purists before changing, but it’s impossible to try without adapting. Ah, this lovely paradox! One thing is certain, I laugh when I see the old system stirring, shaking itself a bit more, trying to resist. But one doesn’t resist the irresistible progression of time and context. Long live Scrum (and its grumpy uncle Extreme Programming, or its ambitious cousin, Kanban)!

Moreover Claude is also a funny guy. It took that much to carry this synthesis of Scrum (and beyond) for 5 years through this book. You’ve understood that this book doesn’t just summarize official Scrum, but rather its living practice that absorbs, tries, rejects, integrates good ideas, good practices from the last ten, twenty years. You think Claude is gentle, simple and scholarly? He’s teasing, curious and rigorous (but it’s true that he’s gentle and wise), he’s as complex as the approach he advocates (and just as sound). One approaches Claude like Scrum, with ease, he’s a welcoming house. By digging deeper one discovers unexpected things. A thirst for learning (which he spreads: that’s why he’s such a good teacher I think), and a real curiosity: he watches. In fact that’s it, he’s a watcher. He watches over the coherence of this thought that never stops developing; not as a guardian of a past time, but as the bearer of a new perspective, because he prospects on these new approaches, these new flows of ideas, inexhaustibly (a 4th edition, this explains that, Claude is a prospector, a pioneer). I laugh hard with Claude, when I see him rail against a discourse without new ideas, or when — with a very revealing little wave of the hand — he lets the killjoys grumble in their corner.

Before letting you move forward with Claude, and wishing you a good read, I’d like to recall a point that seems essential to keep in mind during this discovery of the agile movement. This point is the zone of discomfort. If you embark on these practices with ease, you’re probably getting it wrong. Agile proposes a fairly radical paradigm shift compared to our way of perceiving the company, its value creation and its group dynamics. We are at the antipodes of French habits of the last fifty years: its Cartesianism, its hierarchy, and (counterpart of its sophistication that I love) its cult of perfection.

Take this book as if it had a “Dangerous positioning " sticker on it. And put yourself in danger to properly understand the ins and outs of agility. Without danger, without discomfort, it probably means you’re disguising your old habits under cover of new clothes. And Claude will have failed.

Try to provoke the “OH” of American families who, in the nineteen fifties, saw Elvis burst onto their TVs with his hip-swinging and his magnificent “that’s all right mama”. If you don’t feel the nerve it takes to think and be agile today it means: a) we’re in 2030 and you’re holding in your hands a very old edition of Claude’s book, b) you’re one of the rare people for whom agile is innate c) alert yourself and put yourself in discomfort, take more risks.

When you try a practice from this book, really do it, to see. To know its limits and true teachings. Almost to the point of absurdity, which could prove healthier than it appears. Be “go all the way” to know, not dogmatic to fossilize. I’m not talking about locking yourself into something extreme, but about really trying, then placing your cursor appropriately, with knowledge. Many see in agile common sense, that’s largely true. But only largely, a third of its approach is neither intuitive nor related to common sense. Often we forget that one, and the general coherence suffers. To discover this secret landscape, you must wander through it.

Today the words “agile”, “lean”, “lean startup”, “design thinking”, “liberated company” are being thrown around. Each of these words is packaging that best corresponds to the population it’s addressing (agile for IT professionals, Lean for methodologists, Lean Startup for business people, Design Thinking for agencies and creatives, liberated company for entrepreneurs). But behind it it’s the same groundswell: this profound transformation, revolutionary, on the way of perceiving and thinking about our organizations and our relationships. Is it us who hope for it so much that we make it a reality, or is this transformation really inevitable (which I hope)?

How will you judge that it’s working anyway? Is Scrum bearing fruit? Don’t read your implementation in reference to the measures of the old system. Try to know what’s being said at dinner with friends and family in the evening about your organization, your use of scrum, the best indicator is found there.

Damn I’m telling you that you imagine Scrum simple, that it isn’t, that without discomfort, risk-taking, there’s no salvation, You’re discouraged? Good! Now everything can only get better.

PS/ Claude and I have another common interest: music, rock’n roll, and if we had to focus on one band: Led Zeppelin. It must count for shaking up ideas, to love those four guys who arrived like a wild horde on stage and delivered the unequaled riff of Whole Lotta Love. So to have an enhanced experience reading this book, I therefore recommend accompanying it with a Led Zeppelin record in your ears and a Chartreuse (or a mirabelle) on your lips.

Feedback?

Thanks to Jean-Luc Blanc from Dunod publishers for this note: “It’s a very beautiful preface, lively and warm, different from the conventional texts we receive too often.”