Actionable Increments for Scrum Practitioners

 

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What is Amplio Scrum?

Overview

Amplio Scrum is an extension of Scrum based on a foundation of Flow, Lean, The Theory of Constraints, and Human Centered Development.

It is a subset of the full Amplio system focused on making struggling Scrum teams be effective.

By being based on first principles, it provides insights and practices for several teams to work together. 

  • a significantly improved product management model that increases innovation while reducing waste
  • a systems-thinking approach that improves both how teams work together
  • a human-centered approach that enables team coaches to better coach people
  • verifiable theory that accelerates learning and reduces resistance

Amplio Scrum incorporates the scope of Scrum, Kanban, and Scrum@Scale. However, because it’s based on first principles, it is more flexible than any of these. It enables teams to create their own solutions while pulling from a collection of proven practices.

We call it Amplio Scrum because it is somewhat based on the philosophy of ScrumBan which takes people from Scrum to Kanban and we didn’t want to call it Scrumplio.

We meed to shift to a new norm

Scrum promotes itself as an easy start. But it’s not always approprioate. It’s prescribed roles, events, artifacts, and structures are far from universal. It has these be prescribed and immutable because Scrum is not just based on empirical process control, but further believes that the complexity in product development makes it impossible to predict what would be best in a particular situation.

This, however, is a limiting belief not shared by thought leaders in the Flow, Lean, or Theory of Constraints world.

Scrum is easy to use. Unfortunately, it is far from universal, especially now that it has crossed the chasm. and doesn’t fit the context for which it was designed. Scrum still makes a simple start – you just don’t want to be left with it.

If you’re just starting out, Amplio enables quick starts by using Scrum as a foundation while doing a little analysis of the applicability of sprints and crossfuncional teams while also doing a premortem. This analysis takes about 1 hour. After that you improve your workflow by modifying your workflow and team structure according to the theories of Flow, Lean, and the Theory of Constraints.

Amplio Scrum can also be used to improve current Scrum and even Kanban teams.

What’s needed is not a simple system but a complete system that is simple to use,

What to do after starting with Scrum

Extend Scrum with a few Kanban practices

Integrating flow into Scrum does not turn Scrum into a flow model, but it does improve it. It also teaches teams how to work on smaller items and to be more interruptible.

By introducing a key first principes, learn and capability are quickly improved.

PDSA (Deming’s learning model) is also introduced.

A pre-mortem collaboration board to see what might go wrong is also provided.

Learn ScrumBan

At this point you are ready to go to a truly flow system which includes the Lean and the Theory of Constraints.

This enables you to decide if one-day timeboxing is a better approach than Sprints.

It also provides guidance if teams aren’t cross-functional – which is more common than Scrum proponents would like to admit.

Going to Amplio Scrum

At this point you are ready to go to a truly flow system which includes Lean and the Theory of Constraints.

In addition, several extremely useful practices are added. These include:

  • A jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) with human centered development approach to product management
  • JTBD playbooks to enable people to get insights on how they can do things in their context.
  • A few key value creation structures to deal with the common reality that truly cross-functional teams rarely exist.

The workshop ends with Amplio’s BLAST (Basic Lean-Agile Solutions Team) which can be considered to be a more flexible Scrum @ Scale while predating it by a decade.

See Comparing Scrum org’s PSM I(tm) self-paced workshop with Amplio Scrum Learning Journey.

Attending to the Emotional Aspect of Scrum

Approaches need to attend to how people react to them. Most don’t. While they often take advantage of many people’s desire to take low-risk approaches, what creates this appeal often works against them being effective.

Amplio pays particular attention to this. A lack to emotional involvement often causes a lack of agency. While people can overcome it, we want any approach to encourage it, and not be something you have to overcome.

This is why Amplio introduces inherent simplicity – the presumption that inherent in complex systems are rules that, when understood, enormously simplify how to look at the system – early. This understanding can be used to instill confidence in people.

Eliyahu Goldratt and his daughter Efram gives some solid advice on this topic:

– “A comfort zone has less to do with control and more to do with knowledge.” By this he means that without understanding people will hold onto what they know.

– “The first and most profound obstacle is that people believe that reality is complex, and therefore they are looking for sophisticated explanations for complicated solutions. Do you understand how devastating this is?”

– “The hardest thing to do is to struggle to find an answer to a problem when we believe that there is a high chance that it doesn’t have an answer; it is so easy to give up. That is why Father recommends starting with the conviction that a better solution exists for sure.” (This is from his

“The difficulty is that if I’m not sure, really sure that a second effect does exist, I might stay inside the box; it is always safer to stay within the comfortable boundaries of a box than to jump out into the unknown. Since the other effect is not within that box, I will not find it. I’ll give up searching and remain stuck with a tautology (circular logic).”

The following are some ways people are emotionally influenced by Scrum in an adverse manner:

Cancelling a sprint has a connotation of failure. People tend to not  question if they are still on track. Solution – have short sprints.  30 days sprints were fine in the 80s when “The New New Product Development Game”, which inspired Scrum, was written. Not in today’s fast paced world.

Being told to follow to under is demeaning and slows learning. It often causes resistance as well since it feels imposed.

The original 3 questions in daily Scrum (although they are I know they are not mandated, they were 100% used 20 years ago). Talking about “where I’m stuck” was embarassing to many – especially those of eastern culture who consider ‘being stuck’ as failure and losing face.

The widespread use of planning poker – ignores the planning fallacy which makes estimates even worse than they might be – should use

The product owner role defined as the sole person responsible for what should be done often causes the team to pull back from understanding what’s needed.  This often results in the teams becoming feature factories

Scrum training that takes place over just a couple of days ignores that people don’t learn well this way.

Being immutable not only means you are told to avoid options that might work better for you, people tend to stop looking for them.

The lack of first principles in Scrum is what requires these limitations. While this makes Scrum quicker to adopt, it doesn’t make it more effective up front.

Amplio Scrum Goes Beyond Hybrid Approaches

There’s little question that the hybrid approach of blending Scrum with Kanban is a step in the right direction. It also provides a means for Scrum teams to go beyond the limits of Scrum. But Scrum and Kanban are really recipes formed from specific roles, events, artifacts, and rules. Amplio Scrum gives you both a starting recipe to keep it simple while enabling you to create a recipe tailored to your needs.

This is important in the real world, where even product development teams will have times when planning ahead is not the proper way to work. It also enables teams using different methods to work well together because both know the methods’ basis.

Certification that you can get renewed for no fee is included.

AmplioGPT will train you in any missed questions. You can retake the exam as many times as you like until you pass it. Different exams are offered for each try.

Start as Simply As Scrum While Ending Up With A More Flexible Approach Than Scrum @ Scale.

It doesn’t take long on LinkedIn to see that many Scrum aficionados think there are many poor Scrum Masters out there.

Many blame the SMs entirely for this.

In fact, Scrum, while simple to start, has several limitations.

It lack of theory based on first principles requires it to be immutable. 

In order to be simple it provides a one-size fits all approach with little explanation as to the why of its roles, events, artifacts, and rules.  This is what also requires it to be purposefully incomplete.

This, combined with a lack of training coaching has Scrum Masters being forced to tell their charges to “follow to understand.”

The value proposition for a Scrum Master

Amplio Scrum takes a person well beyond the capabilities of someone who has taken a PSM II workshop while being more affordable and convenient. Amplio’s Scrum learning journey enables learning over time so you can try things out in your workplace, on your team.

It also integrates how to coach each of the concepts involved. And it provides for consulting sessions during the workshop to enage with your particular issues.

Learning Journey Syllabus

This learning journey presumes some understanding with Scrum although no formal training is required.

Some of these sessions have links to links or videos. Others are only available ot those in the Learning Journey which also gets you 2 live Q&A sessions a week ($49 / month). All Lucid boards are licensed to attendees for their first three months. After which they own the boards.

Additional material is available in the Learning Journey.

#1. The Objectives Behind the “hows” of Scrum Having to “follow to understand” not only causes resistance it causes slow learning. At a minimum understand why Scrum does what it does. This will avoid significant resistance and confusion.

#2: Sprint 0. Preparing for Scrum. Includes the premortem and ensuring time-boxing (sprints) is more appropriate than a flow model. Scrum does not work everywhere. The mantra that it’s designed for complex environments does not imply that it works in all complex environments. This helps ensure Scrum is appropriate for you as well as head off several risks you would otherwise face.

#3: Creating a focus on finishing to manage work in process. Keeping work at a level that doesn’t cause rework due to delays in workflow is imperative. This will lower task-switching and reduce the amount of carried over work from one sprint to the next that you would otherwise have.

#4: Inherent simplicity and a few key principles of knowledge work. Abandon Scrum’s “black box” approach of “inspect and adapt” and learn what is driving waste in your system. This enables you to see what changes to your workflow will be advantageous to your team.

#5: An overview of Jobs to be Done Thinking. Using JTBD Thinking at the team level will help avoid much of the waste that changing requirements cause. This will increase innovation, avoid teams becoming feature factories, and make your products more user-friendly.

#6: Moving from user epics, features, and user stories to more effective ways of eliciting requirements. Epics lose a focus on quick delivery, features tend to have us look at the system and not the stakeholders, and user stories tend to leave out othe key stakeholders. Modern requirment methods are far superior to the 30 year old methods typically used. While just an overview is presented, those interested can take the full Jobs to be Done Thinking learning journey as well.

#7: Improving the Scrum practices of the Daily Scrum, retrospectives, estimation, using velocity properly, and others.  Several Lucid boards are made avaiable to attendees. While you are able to do whatever practices you want for Scrum’s ceremonies, most use ones that are not as effective as the could be.  These will have you spend less time in meeting while getting significantly better results.

#8: The basics of coaching with the Amplio Learning Kata. Learning new ideas is not as useful if you don’t know how to convey them. This session is an overview of the Amplio Learning Kata. The equivalent of a two-day coaching workshop is included with your fee. If you don’t know how to coach people don’t expect them to be as effective as they might. Coaching can elevate you into being a respected leader.

#9: How to speak to management to get them to help you be more effective. Most managers are not trying to be obstructions. It’s just that Scrum doesn’t prepare you for how to talk to them. And the model of Scrum is far from attractive to them. They will relate to the approach you learn here much better. Learn how to speak to managers so that they help you instead of being an impediment to you.

#10. Flexible value creation structures. Cross-functional teams are ideal in theory, but are rarely possible or even desirable in reality. This session provides you with insights on how to organize your talent to work together effectively. When you understand the basics of flow, organizing your people into effective teams is straight forward.

#11: The Basic Lean-Agile Solutions Team (BLAST). The inspiration for Scrum @ Scale, only more flexible and easier to implement. Scrum @ Scale takes 2 days to learn because it’s based on Scrum’s black box philosophy. By the time you’ve learned what is underlying knowledge work it is straigthforward to learn something better in a very short period of time. Learn how to go beyond just two or three teams working together.

#12: Review and what’s next.  

The Amplio Foundations and Amplio Kata Learning Journeys Are Included.

Participants in the Amplio Scrum Learning Journey are able to take the complete Amplio Foundations and Amplio Kata Learning Journeys for no extra fee. This represents about another 4 days of coaching. However, selected lessons from these two learning journeys are integrated into the Amplio Scrum Learning journey for those pressed for time. 

If you take the Amplio Kata Learning Journey you’ll know how to coach more effectively than most team coaches – even many ICF coaches.

The shift at the team level.

The diagram above represents the shift for the team and organization evel. The following table represents the shift from Scrum practices to Amplio Scrum. All of these shifts will be covered in the Amplio Scrum Learning Journey. 

See Being a Great Scrum Master Requires More Than Knowing Scrum.

The ScrumBan Quick Start

The ScrumBan Quick Start a simple, fit-for-purpose start that you don’t ever have to abandon.

This is accomplished by learning:

Other Things studied

Scrum with Amplio quick start. Learn more about this here.

Attending to the customer journey

Watch this video to learn what a customer journey is as well as learn how to use the customer journey in requirements.

See this case study where the customer journey was used to make a breakthrough product. The document has a link to a video if you prefer.

See Introducing Amplio Scrum and The Amplio Scrum Coach to improve your ability to be a Scrum Master immediately.

See a LinkedIn Post on How To Improve Scrum.

How is it possible to learn so much in such a short time for so little

When you understand theory you learn faster.  See WhyTheory Is so Important.

With this theory you can manifest the “whys” of Scrum to get more fit for purpose practices. See  The Objectives Behind the “hows” of Scrum

Learn the foundations on which Amplio Scrum (actually all of Amplio) are built here

Why An Amplio Scrum Coach Can Be a Scrum Master for 3-5 teams.

When an Amplio Scrum Coach knows:

  • how to teach Scrum with first principles
  • how to avoid impediments
  • how to improve practices without having to run experiments
  • how to coach people

people tend to resist less and learn more quickly. An Amplio Scrum Coach learns how to enroll team members to help out with Scrum. This means that there is less for the ASC to do. Furthermore, much of the time of Scrum Masters is helping teams work together. Unfortunately, Scrum doesn’t teach much of how to do this. Amplio Scrum provides insights on how teams can work together better.

Cross-team learning is also enhanced because an Amplio Scrum Coach understands the concept of common cause. Common cause errors are those due to the system.  When an error happens in one team, the ASC knows it’ll probably happen in others. This enables the ASC to solve impediments across the teams more efficiently.

 

A note to those currently looking for a Scrum Master Position

For the cost of a 2-day Scrum Master course and significantly less than the cost of a PSM II or Scrum @ Scale workshop, you can cover all three workshops and more.

Amplio on your resume won’t help you get a job.
But putting what you learn from its approach just might.

Amplio is not another framework. It’s an approach to solve your problems in knowledge work. Both how to do it and how to convey useful concepts to others.

It’s a collection of what I’ve learned over the last two decades of what works.
It goes beyond the limitations of being purposefully incomplete, having to follow to understand, and ignoring the cause and effects present. This enables you to see which practices work best for you without having to run experiments. It greatly simplifies enrolling others in what to do.

It works at the team and organization level.
For Scrum Masters, it provides deep insights on how to do better.

Enroll in this learning journey and focus on the Scrum Master curriculum and be able to put this on your resume.

I am enrolled in an advanced 6-month Agile education program led by a recognized Lean-Agile thought leader, where I’ve learned how to:
– lead my teams using the best concepts of Scrum and Kanban
– talk to team members in a way that avoids resistance
– organize teams to take advantage of skilled people who have limited capacity
– know which practices best fit our situation without having to run experiments
– engage with management so that they can help their teams deliver value faster

I also have collaboration boards that:
– at the start of a project, help identify the risks that will be faced
– provide better ways to do high and low-level estimation than Planning Poker
– help teams make certain decisions better.

The bottom line is I’ve learned how to fill in the gaps of Scrum that people with just Scrum training don’t know.
—–
In today’s world, where the number of people applying for Scrum Master / Team Leader jobs is increasing faster than the number of positions available, you can’t just be better – you must also be different.

Blogs about Scrum of Interest

Using Concepts That May Take You Away From Scrum

Concepts Scrum Masters Are Typically Not Taught How to Do

If You’re Concerned About Your Job as a Scrum Master

Let’s stop complaining about the recent rounds of layoffs of Agile coaches and admit there’s something wrong. Only then can we do something about it.

Once you’ve started using Amplio Scrum you can add more concepts from Amplio as you want to continue your journey of improvement.

Attendees of all Amplio Learning Journeys Are Given A Support System

Amplio Scrum Coaches are provided several virtual collaboration boards to help them work, teach and make decisions. They are also able to attend Q&A sessions for six months. This represents an effective support system that makes them more efficient in working with their teams.