I was learning about Scrum to get ready for the Professional Scrum Master exam, I found myself already familiar with most of the how to, as we were practicing it for years, but studying to be prepared for an exam or to give a presentation makes you focus more on the details.
I am a scouter (adult boy scout) who started as a Cub Scout back in Egypt, played several roles, as scout, Patrol Leader, Junior Assistant Scoutmaster, then Senior Patrol Leader for our Rovers team where we won the first prize at the capital level for the first time and for several years after. I then earned my Wood Badge as Assistant Team Leader, then again from the US while rebuilding a cub scout unit as Cubmaster, then joined the Wood Badge staff twice. Wood Badge is the highest and most advanced training course offered to scout leaders by the Boy Scouts of America and many other countries.
I found a great relation between Scrum and what we already have in scouting. But I was surprised when Jeff Sutherland, the co-creator of Scrum, mentioned that he was inspired by the micro financing and Grameen banking founded by Professor Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh. After finishing “The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time” by Jeff Sutherland, I started the “Banker of the Poor” by Muhammad Yunus, where I found relation again between his way of fighting poverty and what we do in software development and in scouting.
The common points between Scrum, Scouting and Micro Financing are many, but the main ones as I understand, can be summarized in:
1. Teams and Groups
They all depend on small groups as building blocks, without it you have nothing. Grameen group of 5, Scrum Development Team from 3 to 9, Boy Scout Patrol 6 to 8. “The patrol method isn’t one way to run a troop. It’s the only way” Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the scout movement. These groups work together as one entity with common goal, to succeed as a team to reach their destination. If one individual has a problem, everyone in his team rushes to guide, help and support.
In Grameen no one tells the borrowers what businesses they have to do, they are trusted to use the loan in the best way to save themselves from poverty, their team members though have the responsibility of approving the loans. In Scrum, the development team plan their sprint, and it is the responsibility of them all to achieve the sprint goal. The Patrol Leaders Council in the boy scout troop plan their annual activities, they are elected by their patrols and trusted to put the most fun and exciting program. When it is time to put their camp down, they say “Everyone is a Quartermaster!”, which is very similar to the cross functional teams in Scrum.
2. Values and principles
Without Courage, Commitment, Focus, Openness and Respect there is no Scrum Team. Grameen groups must follow these four principles: Discipline, Unity, Courage and Hard work. While the Scout Law states that the Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.
The individuals within the team do their best to follow these values and principals, they also work together on enhancing their understanding and practicing of them while in the process. This was actually the first thing that grabbed my attention to the similarity between Scouting and Scrum, and then Grameen, they not just focus on the values as a way to succeed, they all have methods to instill these values into the members over time, in Scrum this is part of the adaptation.
3. Servant Leadership
The leaders supporting and guiding the teams are not there to manage, they are there to coach, mentor and remove impediments. Servant leaders focus on the team and individuals, beside their own vision to how success may looks like for a team, they help each individual be successful in his tasks and duties, and may also help him build his own vision, help him move through the "Shu Ha Ri" stages.
While it is human nature, people like to tell others what to do than to be told what to do, servant leaders made the choice to lead by giving more than they receive. Scouts practice servant leadership in their everyday activities, they learn how to delegate and work together as a team, they learn how to guide and lead while giving everyone the chance to have the feeling that they find the way themselves, a Leave No Trace in another way.
The money lender feels proud after lifting a poor person from poverty, as a servant leader he knows what it means to that borrower to feel proud of himself by doing all he can do himself once given the opportunity.
One way to describe a Scrum master is that he is NOT a manager, there is no managing people in scrum, only mentoring, encouraging, empowering and enabling. In scouting this is summarized in the EDGE method as Explain, Demonstrate, Guide and Enable.
4. Learn by Doing
In scouting, it is a boy lead program, it may be the only program that allows youth to fail to learn from their failure themselves, in many cases things look very messy and discourages parents, but servant leaders understand that this is the way to build future leaders.
In Scrum, the empirical process is a key, learning by doing and testing, through transparency, inspection and adaptation. Plans are created based on what we tried to do and what we learned while doing it.
With micro finance, credit is given into small amounts, as much as needed to take a step, the borrower adjusts his future financing plans based on what was accomplished. This is the opposite of the mega projects that usually organizations do for rural areas, and then discovering that this project is not what this area really needs.
5. The Methods
Eight methods in scouting help in achieving the goals, outdoor programs, uniform and leadership development are just examples. “Do a Good Turn Daily”, the scout slogan, is an important part of the Personal Growth method, it is not the same as doing a big service project monthly, or weekly, it is a small daily act of kindness to refresh the commitment and to participate in the incremental added value to our life. Scoutmaster conferences are about 10 minutes long and Board of Reviews about 15 to 20 minutes long are also an opportunity for transparency and inspection that leads to adaptation. After each event the scouts should do a Start-Stop-Continue exercise.
When Grameen and micro financial started in the beginning, the borrower was asked to do a daily payment to settle their loan, later it was changed to weekly payments as a team, the team meet and discuss the progress, make payments and agree on future financial plans. This small incremental progress and meeting with the team is a key to the program, even if you can not make the full payment, you still need to meet and discuss and seek guidance.
In Scrum similar methods are named events, like the sprint planning, sprint review, sprint retrospective and the daily Scrum meeting. The daily Scrum meeting is a 15 minutes long meeting, where the team members mention what they accomplished, what they are planning to work on next, and if they have any impediments. The retrospective meeting is similar to the Start-Stop-Continue exercise in scouting. The same as the Scoutmaster conference, the Scrum master does a one to one meeting with each team member which is a coaching opportunity, but also a two-way feedback.
In scouting “Feedback is a gift, it’s truly is!”, the leaders including youth, learn how to give feedback, learn about the “I Language/Message”, learn about the Tuckman’s stages of group development, effective listening and how to manage conflicts.
6. Definition of Success
Not talking here about the definition of done in Scrum, which is really important. But the definition of success as the ability of a team to deliver incremental completed “done” value to the market or the user. The end product delivered may vary completely from the initial idea, but the success at the end is to deliver what is really needed by the end user. For financial or any other organizational problems, teams may be stopped from delivering the end product, but having a team that is able to deliver, is a success.
Most financial institutions in the loan market focus on how much interest will be collected. In Micro Financing, ending poverty in a certain area is great, but building the individual who knows how to be a team member, knows how to come out of poverty and help others, is the main success. "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." Moses ben Maimon.
Scouting is the same, it is not about the destination, but the journey. People usually get confused between the scouting methods, like the scouting activities and advancements, and scouting aims like character development, citizenship training, leadership, and mental and physical fitness. So, success in scouting is not measured by how many scouts reached Eagle rank, but their ability to help themselves, their families and serve their community and their country heartfully.
