ScrumButt: What it is, how to avoid it

ScrumButt: What it is, how to avoid it.
Agile Greenville — July 18th, 2016

ScrumButt
Kudos to Eric Gunnerson for coining the
term ScrumButt in 2006.
CSM v9.3 © Jeff Sutherland 1993-2008; © Joe Little 20162

MEANING OF SCRUMBUTT TEST
• When we started, we thought: “Just an oil
change and checking the tires.”
• Later discovered: “The better the score, the
better the results.” Somewhat surprising.

• Why does it happen?

THE SCRUMBUTT TEST
• Are you iterative?
• Sprints are 4 weeks or less

• Features are tested and working by the end of the Sprint

• Sprints start with an Enabling Speciﬁcation

• Are you doing Scrum?
• You know who the Product Owner is

• There is a Product Backlog prioritized by Business Value

• The Product Backlog has estimates created by the Team

• The Team generates burndown charts and knows their velocity

• There are no project managers (or anyone else) disrupting the
Team

QUESTION 1: ITERATIONS
• No iterations - 0

• Iterations > 6 weeks - 1

• Variable length < 6 weeks - 2

• Fixed iteration length 6 weeks - 3

• Fixed iteration length 5 weeks - 4

• Fixed iteration 4 weeks or less - 10

QUESTION 2: TESTING
• No dedicated QA - 0

• Unit tested - 1

• Feature tested - 5

• Features tested as soon as completed - 7

• Software passes acceptance testing - 8

• Software is deployed - 10

QUESTION 3: ENABLING
SPECIFICATION
• No requirements - 0

• Big requirements documents - 1

• Poor user stories - 4

• Good requirements - 5

• Good user stories - 7

• Just enough, just in time speciﬁcations - 8

• Good user stories tied to speciﬁcations as
needed - 10

QUESTION 4: PRODUCT OWNER
• No Product Owner - 0

• Product Owner who doesn’t understand Scrum - 1

• Product Owner who disrupts team - 2

• Product Owner not involved with team - 2

• Product Owner with clear Product Backlog
estimated by team before Sprint Planning Meeting
(READY) - 5

• Product Owner with release roadmap with dates
based on team Velocity - 8

• Product Owner who motivates team - 10

QUESTION 5: PRODUCT BACKLOG
• No Product Backlog - 0

• Multiple Product Backlogs - 1

• Single Product Backlog - 3

• Product Backlog clearly speciﬁed and prioritized
by ROI before Sprint Planning (READY) - 5

• Product Owner has release plan based on Product
Backlog - 7

• Product Owner can measure ROI based on real
revenue, cost per Story Point, or other metrics - 10

QUESTION 6: ESTIMATES
• Product Backlog not estimated - 0

• Estimates not produced by team - 1

• Estimates not produced by Planning Poker
- 5

• Estimates produced by Planning Poker by
team - 8

• Estimate error < 10% - 10

QUESTION 7: BURNDOWN CHART
• No burndown chart - 0
• Burndown chart not updated by team - 1
• Burndown chart in hours/days not accounting for
work in progress (partial tasks burn down) - 2
• Burndown chart only burns down when task is
done (TrackDone pattern) - 4
• Burndown only burns down when story is done - 5
• Add three points if team knows Velocity
• Add two points if Product Owner release plan
based on known Velocity

Track Done - Scrum pattern by Jim Coplien
… you have a burn-down chart that you are using to track remaining work. The burn-down chart is a visible picture of the project state, and serves as a team
motivator and sanity check.
It is easy to interpret the burn-down chart as a good portrayal of estimated remaining time, and to use that portrayal to develop confidence in meeting the
Sprint’s actual business goals of done functionality.
Usually, team members update the burn-down chart daily to reflect adjustments to the amount of remaining work. Such updates reflect a desire to have as
good knowledge as is possible about the effort remaining. These estimates are made in mid-stream and reflect increases that arise from emergent
requirements. However, given that one emergent requirement has been discovered in a task doesn’t imply that no others remain. While the confidence in an
estimate usually improves with each revision and with continued work on the task, unusually wicked problems seem never to converge.
On the other hand the Product Owner is not centrally interested in partially completed work, only in items that are done and potentially shippable. Since the
goal of Scrum is to achieve the Sprint target agreed with the Product Owner, and to reduce risk, the focus should be on done. Emergent requirements increase
risk, and the Product Owner is certainly interested if estimates expand. Because there may always be emergent requirements, any estimate of remaining time
based on work mid-stream in a task has a higher degree of uncertainty than the relatively risk-free estimate of zero remaining time for done items.
In theory, it is possible for the remaining time on a burn-down chart to be quite near zero, yet to have few (or perhaps zero!) tasks in the done state.
Therefore:
Update the Product Backlog in only two cases: reducing the amount of remaining known work if the task is done; and increasing the amount of known
work if the task grows in size due to emergent requirements or other insights gained during the Sprint. Do not reduce the amount of remaining work that
arises from progress on partially completed tasks.
The team and Product Owner have a better picture of the state of the Sprint with respect to the Sprint’s business goals of delivering done functionality. The
team can revise estimations in the middle of a Sprint with more confidence because they are not dependent on the unknown remaining time for partially
completed tasks. Yet, the risks incurred by the “surprises” of emergent requirements are embraced and made visible.
It is impossible, using this approach, to come near the end of a Sprint with a burn-down chart that projects success even if the Sprint only ends with 90% of
the tasks 90% done.
There is a chance that a completed task can become “un-completed” by emerging requirements in some other task during the sprint. For such cases, see the
pattern Domino Effect.
This pattern was suggested by Jeff Sutherland, co-founder of Scrum, and he reports that it is widely used by his clients.
James O. Coplien
Wednesday, September 24, 2008

QUESTION 8: TEAM DISRUPTION
• Manager or project leader disrupts team - 0

• Product Owner disrupts team - 1

• Managers, project leaders or team leaders
assigning tasks - 3

• Have project leader and Scrum roles - 5

• No one disrupting team, only Scrum roles -
10
0
2 0
4 0
6 0
8 0
100
120
0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0
Number of Roles
%Saturation
Organizational Patterns of Agile Software Development by Coplien
and Harrison (2004)

STAND AND DELIVER
• Write alone (1 minute): What are the three
biggest mistakes with Scrum?

• Discuss as team (2 minutes): What are the
three biggest mistakes with Scrum?

• Stand & explain (3 minutes): What are the
three biggest mistakes with Scrum?
14 © Joe Little 2016

Questions?
• Yes, not easy to get everyone to change to these (new?)
ideas
• But, if we did, would this make things better? (Of course!)
• Questions?

More information…
• We wrote a book: Agile Release Planning… You can
download it for free.
• Courses/Workshops: LeanAgileTraining.com
Joseph Little
• jhlittle@leanagiletraining.com
• 704-376-8881
• LeanAgileTraining.com

ScrumButt: What it is, how to avoid it

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