SCRUM

The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time

BY JEFF SUTHERLAND

THE BIG “SO WHAT” KEY QUOTES

Scrum is a team performance framework – a new way of thinking “Scrum…is akin to evolutionary,
and working - that delivers more results, at higher quality, adaptive, and self-correcting
and at lower cost. When well implemented, teams can see systems.”
productivity improvements of up to 800%. Although it has its
origins in software development, Scrum has since been proven “In this book you’re going to learn
to transform team results in various domains. Sutherland some of the fundamental ways
that people work best, why we’re
suggests that, when mastered, Scrum can transform how we
awful at estimating, and why
think and work to achieve flow and our higher purpose.
working overtime will make your
project late.”

INTRODUCTION

“Scrum accelerates human effort –

Scrum was created by author Jeff Sutherland with Ken Schwaber
it doesn’t matter what that effort
in 1993, and represented a drastic change from the typical top-
is.”
down project management approach of that time. Since then,
it has become the default way that tech companies (including
Google, Amazon and Facebook) use to create software and
products. It has also been adopted successfully in non-tech
industries, education, the government etc.

The book covers the history and origins of Scrum, an overview

of how Scrum works, and why you should use it to revolutionize
your business.
“Scrum…requires practice and
attention, but also a continuous
THE “WAY WE DO THINGS” DOESN’T WORK
effort to reach a new state – a
state where things just flow and
happen.”
Sutherland shared details of his professional journey,
observations and how he challenged conventional ways of
1

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

doing things, resulting in Scrum as we know it today. Some of
the highlights include:
• How he survived as a reconnaissance fighter pilot in Vietnam;
• How he took his own L2 company (as a cadet at West Point
in 1963) from being the lowest performing to the highest
performing;
• How his study of cancer cells (when pursuing a doctoral
degree in Biometrics) helped him to understanding people KEY QUOTES
and organizations as complex systems; and
• How the FBI almost failed twice to modernize their systems “Organizations, teams, and

in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, people are all complex adaptive
systems.”
and how Scrum turned around the Sentinel project to
successful completion.

In this summary, we will highlight :

• Key concepts and components of Scrum and why they work;
and
• An overview of the Scrum process.

WHY SCRUM WORKS

Sutherland’s message is: our old and current ways of doing

things don’t work. He explains why Scrum is a viable alternative,
using stories from case studies and his personal experience to
illustrate the ideas. In this segment, we’ve extracted the key
principles and ideas behind Scrum, and presented them in 4
parts.
“Change or Die. Clinging to
the old way of doing things, of
PLANNING AND PRIORITIES
command and control and rigid
predictability, will bring only

The traditional project management approach typically involves failure.”

the “waterfall method” which is ineffective:

“The very act of planning is
• All business requirements and key steps (from technical so seductive, so alluring, that
design to client approval) are mapped out, colour-coded, and planning itself becomes more
linked together on “Gantt charts”. important than the action plan.”
• For complex projects, such plans take months to do.
2

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

Requirements are documented in stacks of paper (which are
often not read). People try to prioritize requirements and
estimate resources (often inaccurately), and struggle to relate
the charts to their workflow (which is not intuitively how our
minds work). In reality, things never go according to plan, and
more resources are hired to try to make the plan work.

Scrum, on the contrary, is built on these important planning

insights:
KEY QUOTES
Review and adapt. Humans are bad at estimating
the amount of time we need to get something
done, and we cannot predict every detail. Instead,
“The map is not the terrain. Don’t
develop an initial plan, take action, and check in
fall in love with your plan. It’s
regularly on your plan - see if you are ontrack, if
almost certainly wrong.”
this is still what people want, and if there’s a better
way to do it. The faster you fail, the faster you can
fix things.
“Planning is useful. Blindly
following plans is stupid.”
Flow, not control. People, teams and organizations
are complex adaptive systems, and we thrive when
“Build into your working method
we learn from our environment. Structure your
the assumption of change,
teams and processes around flow, learning and
discover and new ideas.”
creativity, not top-down control and rigid processes

Focus on value. Focus work and processes to create

value, not follow processes and norms. The shorter
“What (people) need to ask…
your working product cycles, the faster you can get
was…what will bring the most
feedback and eliminate unnecessary effort.
value to the project?”

80-20 rule. For any product or service, you typically

have a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) when you’ve
completed about 20% of the features which deliver
80% of the value. Focus on making the features that
“Scrum embraces uncertainty and
people value and releasing them first, then repeat
creativity. It places a structure
the process for the next most valuable features, so
around the learning process,
you deliver more value in a fraction of the time.
enabling teams to assess both
Here are a few ways that Scrum helps you plan and prioritize what they’ve created and, just as
important, how they created it.”
better. We’ll explain the process in more detail later:
• Have a “Definition of Done” for each to-do item, so you
• know what must be created, and how you know when it is
done;
• Identify which items bring most value, and do those first;
• Once you have something of value, show it to the customers,
so you can get their feedback and start refining your plans.
3

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

 TEAMS

In any organization, teams are what drive results. Hence, focus

on improving team (not individual) performance. Sutherland
found several ingredients for great teams, which are built into
Scrum:
KEY QUOTES
Cross-functionality. Great teams have all the
requisite skills/ expertise to complete a project (e.g.
planning, design, production, sales and marketing,
distribution), and they share information and work
together closely.

Autonomy. Great teams self-organize, self-

manage, make their own decisions and stick to
them. Respect your teams as masters of their craft
and give them the freedom to decide, act and
“It’s the system that surrounds
improvise.
us, rather than any intrinsic
quality, that accounts for the vast
Transcendence. Great teams have an extra-
majority of our behaviour.”
ordinary sense of purpose that is bigger than the
individual, and this pushes them to seek greatness.
“We’re all creatures of the system
Size. Scrum works best in small teams of 3-9.
we find ourselves embedded
Adding more people to a project makes it much
in. What Scrum does is accept
longer to finish the project:
this reality, and, instead of
• It takes more time to bring people up to speed,
seeking someone to blame, it
and
tries to examine the system that
• Each team member increases the number
produced the failure and fix it.”
of communication channels exponentially,
straining our capacity to coordinate

Fix systems, not people. Humans are prone to

di rb
the “Fundamental Attribution Error”, i.e. we tend
to attribute others’ behaviour to their character
or inherent properties, rather see them than a
function of the external environment. Recognize
that “bad” behaviours are a result of poor systems
and not bad people. Fix the system/ environment
instead.

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

 MINIMIZE TIME AND RESOURCE WASTAGE

Time is the ultimate limited resource, and the true determinant

of how much we can accomplish. We are also creatures of habit
and seek rhythm and some predictability in our lives. Sutherland
identifies several principles to optimize time-use and build the
right rhythms:
KEY QUOTES
Do one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is inefficient Time is the ultimate limiter of
– it spreads our focus thinly across multiple tasks, human endeavour, affecting
and we lose time when we switch tasks. Scrum everything from how much we
focuses on doing one thing exclusively at a time. work, to how long things take, to
Just this habit alone will save you about half the how successful we are.”
time.
“Multitasking makes you stupid.
Minimize Work-in-Progress (WIP).WIP basically Doing more than 1 thing at a time
means you have expended the effort but have not makes you slower and worse at
yet created value. When you have a lot of things in both tasks. Don’t do it.”
WIP, you have no resources for other value-added
activities. Minimize WIP and excessive inventory.
“Doing half of something is,
Do it right the first time. Mistakes are inevitable. essentially, doing nothing.”
The key is to deal with the problems once they
occur. This facilitates learning/ improvement, and “Jobs that aren’t done and
prevents problems from compounding. products that aren’t being used
• Toyota took about 30% of the time to produce are two aspects of the same
a car, with about half the defects compared thing: invested effort with no
with European companies like BMW, Audi and positive outcome. Don’t do it.”
Mercedes-Benz. How did they do that? When a
problem surfaces in the Toyota production line,
any worker can stop the line and have the team
jointly fix the problem, hence preventing the “The right moment to fix a
problem from duplicating and compounding. In problem is when it is observed,
software development, a bug may take 1 hour to not after the fact.”
fix if it is addressed at the onset, but 24 times as
long to fix just 3 weeks later. In short, fix it now.

Facilitate small improvements. Break down complex “If you do make a mistake…fix it
as soon as you notice it. If you
projects into small chunks that can be managed and
don’t, you’ll pay for it.”
improved incrementally:
• Set challenging but reasonable goals to motivate
people.
5

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

 • Use small wins, not heroics. If you constantly
need heroes to get things done and solve
crises, it’s a sign of failed planning and people
will burn out.

Measure output, not hours worked. When we

work fewer hours, we may actually get more
work done. Besides physical fatigue, working long KEY QUOTES
hours depletes our energy, self-control and self-
regulation. When you are overworked: “Who cares how many hours
• You make more mistakes and you waste time someone worked on something?
fixing them; and All that matters is how fast it’s
• You are mentally exhausted, leading to poorer delivered and how good it is.”
decisions.

“Any policy that seems ridiculous

Remove impediments, aim for Flow. Seek the
likely is. Stupid forms, stupid
smoothest, least obstructed way to get things done.
meetings, stupid approvals, stupid
Remove impediments including stupid policies/ standards are just that – stupid.”
processes, and people who spread negativity.

Here are several Scrum components to bring these principles

to life:
• Sprints. Complex projects are chunked down into actionable
items that can be done in regular, short periods of 1-4 weeks
(Sprints).
• Small wins & demos. At the end of each Sprint, the goal
is to have something that’s completed, and can be used/
demonstrated.
• Total transparency. Information flows freely, and everyone
knows everything, from salaries to financials.
• Meet 15 minutes a day. Everyone in the team gets together
only once a day, for up to 15 minutes (Daily Scrum), to check
in on their progress, identify what can be improved, and do
it.

“The research is startlingly clear.

GROWTH AND HAPPINESS
Happy people simple do better –
at home, at work, in life.”

Happiness has been widely researched, and proven to be a

predictor of performance, i.e. people who are happier generally
perform better.
6

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

Most of us spend the bulk of our time at work striving towards
greatness, and we usually feel the most fulfilled when we are
pushing the limits of our minds, spirits and body (not when we
are at the peak or end goal). Ironically, organizational rewards
are typically pegged to results or outcomes, and neglect the
process or the journey.

To nurture a happy, productive and self-motivated team: KEY QUOTES

Quantify happiness and growth.
• Quantify happiness using the “Happiness
Metric” (have each team member rate how he/ “True happiness is found in the
she feels about the role and the company as a process, not the result. Often we
whole, why, and what’s the 1 thing to make him/ only reward results, but what we
her happier the next sprint). really want to reward is people
• Use Team Velocity to measure the team’s actual striving toward greatness.”
performance.
That way, you not only help people to feel and get
better everyday, but measure it for objectivity and “It’s not good enough just to feel
visibility. good; you need to measure that
feeling and compare it to actual
Small, ongoing improvements. After each Sprint, performance.”
the team picks 1 improvement that will make them
happier. This gets placed at the top of the Backlog
to be accomplished in the next Sprint. “All I had to do was start asking
the team, ‘What would make you
Trust and transparency. Use the daily scrums, happier?’ and then deliver on it.”
reviews and scrum board etc. to make work visible
and ensure there are no secrets. When an item
is stuck on the board, someone obviously needs
help and the team can chip in. To support a culture “Forget trust-building exercises,
of continuous improvement, the team must be and instead build trust every
mature and responsible enough to focus on issues single day.”
constructively, not assign personal blame.
In short, people thrive when they have autonomy, mastery
“One of Scrum’s virtues is that it
and purpose. Scrum empowers people to make things happen,
makes the uncomfortable visible,
perfect their craft, and systematically removes sources of
quickly.”
unhappiness.
“Even small gestures can have
IMPLEMENTING SCRUM great impact…Just one thing at a
time, and you can actually change
the world.”
We’ll now put the elements together in an overview of how to
implement Scrum.
7

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

PICK PEOPLE FOR THE 3 KEY SCRUM ROLES

• Product Owners (POs) decide what should

be done, including your product vision and
what you’re going to do/ make/ accomplish:
KEY QUOTES
A product that delivers real value is one that the
team is passionate about, can deliver and can
sell. The PO is responsible for consulting with
the various stakeholders and the team to define
the product vision:

Product “The Chief Engineer can’t

simply say something has to be
Vision done in a particular way. He
What
you’re
What has to persuade, cajole, and
you can
Passionate Sell demonstrate that his way is the
about
right way, the best way.”
What
you
can
implement

The PO also identifies the masterlist of things

to be done, in order of priority (the Product
Scrum aligns everyone’s
Backlog).
interests….Everyone works
toward the same goal and with
The PO is a leader but not a boss. He/she sets
the same vision: deliver real value
out what needs to be done and why, and leads as fast as possible.
by persuasion, not coercion. The PO leaves it to
the team to decide how and who to deliver the
work.

To fulfill these roles, the PO must meet these

criteria:
• Be knowledgeable about the domain, so he/
she knows what can be done, and how to
translate that into real value;
• Be empowered to make decisions about the
8

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

 product vision and what must be done
to fulfill it;
• Be available to the team, to help them
understand what must be done and why;
• Be accountable for value (and typically
by extension, revenue)

• Scrum Master (SM) helps the team to

figure out how to do the work better. KEY QUOTES

The SM focuses on how fast the team is

“The customer is anyone who will
moving and how to move even faster. He/
get value from what you’re doing.”
she coaches the rest of the team through the
Scrum framework, and helps to remove all
impediments that slows the team down.
• The Team comprises people actually doing “For Scrum to really take off,
the work. someone in senior management
needs to understand in his bones
They must have all the skills to bring the PO’s that impediments are nearly
vision to life, and the team should be kept small criminal.”
(with ideally 3-9 people).

“The key is to refine the plan

CREATE AND PRIORITIZE A PRODUCT BACKLOG
throughout the project rather
than do it all up front. Plan in just
• The Product Backlog summarizes what to do when. It is
enough detail to deliver the next
the masterlist of everything to be built or done to make the increment of value, and estimate
vision a reality, presented in order of priority. It is the PO’s the remainder of the project in
responsibility to define and manage the backlog, making larger chunks.”
sure the team stays ontrack toward the product vision.

• What must be done: Rather than create thick stacks of user

requirements that no one reads or understands, develop
understandable pieces of work:
Create a list of everything that could possibly be done on a
“Organize by value, whatever
project;
value that may be”.
Prioritize the list by value, starting with items that have the
biggest impact, can sell for the most value, and be done
most easily. The goal is to focus on 20% of the features that
deliver 80% of the value
For each item, develop the “definition of done”, i.e. how you
9

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

 will know when the item is complete.
We think better in narratives. Instead of creating a to-do list,
use stories or courses of action that present “who”, “what”,
and “why”, e.g. “As a customer, I want to be able to review
the key ideas of the books I’ve read on 1 page, so I can
remember and apply them.” Ensure each story meets the
“INVEST criteria”:
Independent (doesn’t depend on another story) KEY QUOTES
Negotiable (can be rewritten or changed until it’s actually
done) “People think in narratives, in
Valuable (delivers value to the stakeholder) stories. That’s how we understand
Estimable (you can size it) the world.”
Small (bite-size enough that you can estimate and plan for
it)
Testable (so you know it passes the “definition of done”)

• Refine and estimate the resources:

Estimate resource requirements. Based on the prioritized list,
the team estimates if the items are doable, and how much
effort and resources are required to complete them.
Use relative estimates. While we are bad at absolute estimates,
we are good at comparison estimates. You can use T-shirt
sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL) to define the relative size of
a problem (is this item an “S” or “XL”?), or ideally use the
Fibonacci sequence to assign a point value for each item.
Useful planning tools. Although we generally make better
estimates as a group, there’s the risk of groupthink, halo
effect etc. Sutherland shares several useful tips to overcome
such group planning fallacies, e.g. using the Delphi method
or “planning poker” The important thing…is just to
begin. Just start.
Remember that these exercises are intended to produce
estimates, not exact numbers (which are impossible to predict).

SPRINT PLANNING

With your backlog in place, you are ready for your first Scrum
meeting – your Sprint Planning, where you identify what you
can accomplish at the upcoming sprint.
10

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

• Who. The PO, SM and team all sit down to plan the sprint
together.
• What. Sprints are for a fixed duration, typically 1-2 weeks,
and always less than a month.
• How. Starting from the top of the Backlog, forecast how
much you can complete in the upcoming Sprint.
Know your velocity. Initially, you will not know how fast the
team can move. However, since you’ve assigned relative KEY QUOTES
ratings to each story/ item, you can sum up the points after
each sprint to assess your progress. After a few sprints, you
know your team velocity.
Improve your velocity. For subsequent sessions, use your team
velocity (the number of points from the last Sprint) and aim
to improve the number each Sprint (e.g. from 20 points to
40 points). The SM’s role is to identify (a) what’s keeping the
team from moving faster, (b) what things can be offloaded
and (c) if the scope be reduced further.
Alignment. Reinforce how the items fulfill the vision, and
agree on a Sprint Goal (what everyone wants to achieve this
Sprint)
Commitment. Once the team has committed to their
forecast, it can’t be changed. The team must be able to work
autonomously through the Sprint to complete what they
committed.
• Make work visible. There’s totally transparency in Scrum,
and here are some tools you can use to improve visibility
and sharing:
Scrum Board. Create a board with 3 columns: To Do, Doing,
Done. Put up sticky notes that represent the items to be
completed. These are moved across the Scrum Board as
they are done.
Burn-down Chart. Each day, the SM tallies the number of
points completed by the team, and plots them on the chart.
Ideally, you see a steep downward slope to zero points by
the end of the Sprint.

11

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

 DAILY STAND-UP OR DAILY SCRUM

This meeting must be held at the same time every day, and
everyone has to be present (PO, SM and Team). At the meeting,
the Scrum Master asks each member 3 questions :
1. “What did you do yesterday to help the team finish the KEY QUOTES
Sprint?”
“The heart of Scrum is rhythm.
2. “What will you do today to help the team finish the Sprint?”
Rhythm is deeply important to
3. “Is there any obstacle blocking you or the team from achieving
human beings….We’re pattern
the Sprint Goal?” seekers, driven to seek our rhythm
in all aspects of our lives.”
The meeting should take only 15min or less, and everyone walks
away knowing the most important thing they must accomplish
that day, and feeling motivated to achieve it. The team manages
its own tasks and there’s no need for any management report.
The SM is in charge of removing the identified obstacles for
the team.

SPRINT REVIEW/ SPRINT DEMO

The goal of each Sprint is to have something done, so it can

be demonstrated. At this meeting, the team shows what they
have accomplished in the last Sprint.
• “Done” items. Only items that have met the “definition of
done” can be shown, and it is moved to “Done” on the scrum
board.
• An open meeting. Anyone (including stakeholders,
management, customers) can come to this open meeting.
This is the opportunity for the team to get feedback to see
if they have created something of value, and/ or to identify
changes required.
By delivering work in incremental slices, Scrum helps the
Product Owner to see stakeholders’ reaction and assess how
much value each increment offers. This provides a feedback
loop to help the PO to determine what to do in the next Sprint,
and to constantly identify the 20% of effort that delivers 80%
of the value.
12

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

 SPRINT RETROSPECTIVE

After each Sprint, the team and Scrum Master review what
went right, and agree on one process improvement to be
implemented in the next Sprint – this is added to the top of the
Backlog. The latest learning is integrated and the next Sprint
KEY QUOTES
Cycle starts.

FLOW “The key is to look for what slices

actually hold value – enough
value that you can get real
“Shuhari” is a Japanese martial art concept that describes the feedback on them and react in
stages of learning to mastery. You start by learning the rules real time.”
and forms, then innovating when you have mastery. Finally,
when you have internalized the learning in a heightened state
of mastery, you can discard the forms and just be.
“What you really want in your
Sutherland believes that in a perfect world, human capability work is effortless ‘flow’…when you
could flow effortlessly and intuitively to create the greatest reach a sense of oneness with a
possible value, and there would be no need for processes, even motion, it is no longer an effort;
Scrum. Given our imperfect world the least we can do is to it is energy effortlessly flowing
have the discipline to religiously minimize waste and remove through you.”
obstacles to flow.
“At the root of flow is
discipline.”

OTHER DETAILS IN THE

BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR

This is an easy-to-read book written in a lively, story-telling

format. Sutherland shares many of his personal experiences
and observations in vivid detail, illustrating how Scrum brought
breakthrough results in warfare, business, education and in
addressing social issues like poverty.

There are also detailed examples of how Scrum philosophies are

used in companies like Toyota, Zappos and Valve – a videogame
company that truly epitomizes Scrum at work.

13

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

Valve generates revenues of hundreds of millions per annum,
without management or reporting structure, fixed processes,
and its projects are started and self-organize at all levels of the
company.

Find out more about Scrum at www.scruminc.com, or download

your scrum guides at www.scrumguides.org.
KEY QUOTES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR OF “Don’t listen to cynics who tell

you what cant be done. Amaze
SCRUM them with what can.”

Jeff Sutherland is the inventor and

Co-Creator of Scrum, and an author,
coach and consultant. He started
the first Scrum at Easel Corporation
in 1993, and worked with Ken
Schwaber to develop Scrum into a
formal process. Together, they have
extended and enhanced Scrum at
many companies, especially in the
Picture from Wikipedia.org
the software and IT industry.

Jeff is currently the CEO of Scrum Inc. He is also Chairman of

the Scrum Foundation and Agile coach to OpenView Venture
Partners (which runs all its internal operations with Scrum),
and more than 30 portfolio companies. Jeff has been VP of
Engineering, CTO, or CEO of 11 companies and implemented
Scrum in 7 of them including his current company. His
experience in teaching Scrum at the Harvard Business School
helps with management workshops.

14

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.

 ABOUT READINGRAPHICS

ReadinGraphics captures pearls of

wisdom from the best books around the
world, chunks down concepts into simple,
actionable steps, and presents them in
graphics that you can absorb at a glance. KEY QUOTES
We cut through the clutter to bring ideas to life, making it easier
to see, organize and apply insights to create breakthroughs.

Find out more about us at https://readingraphics.com

www.readingraphics.com ReadinGraphics ReadinGraphics

15

Copyright © 2016 Skool of Happiness Pte Ltd. • All Rights Reserved.