All about Scrum – Jeff Sutherland in the Dialogues House

Scrum is so interesting to Dialogues because it forms a means to solve the biggest dilemma in large organizations today: how to get continuous innovation with disciplined execution. It was only a matter of time before we invited the inventor of Scrum, Dr. Jeff Sutherland, in the Dialogues House in order to tap into his knowledge and expertise on this remarkable tool. Tuesday June 7th was quite a hectic day for the crew of Dialogues Incubator, Dialogues House and Dialogues Technology. Our featured guest took center stage in an engaging event about Scrum and radical management that attracted more than 400 participants.

The entire seminar was divided in 2 parts. First, a morning session addressed at 230 employees of ABN AMRO Bank, where Jeff talked about the starting point for Scrum, how Scrum came to be adopted worldwide and how it can be applied in large organizations. The second session was dedicated to our partners and clients, attracting a 90 person strong audience. Both sessions were energetic and lively, with healthy interaction between Jeff and the audience and a multitude of questions posed in the end. The subsequent discussion, facilitated by Paul Iske, was brimming with positivity and constructive remarks.

Last but not least, Jeff sat together with the Dialogues Incubator team to answer questions and offer us his insights on how to effectively apply Scrum on a project, team and department-wide level. Our discussion further proved the value of being thorough, inquisitive and able to address your impediments (Scrum term for obstacles and shortcomings) so that you can accomplish better and quicker results. Quoting Jeff, “a team without any impediments at all, is an impediment to itself”.

What’s more, the team of DI has recently released a white paper on effectively applying Scrum in a business context (traditionally Scrum was conceived for software development). Dialogues Masters has organized two Scrum sessions in June and July:
http://www.dialoguesmasters.nl/course/agile-scrum-for-business/
http://www.dialoguesmasters.nl/course/agile-scrum-for-business-juli/

So now that you know, have read and heard about it, take the initiative to learn more, implement it into your procedures and enjoy the benefits. Because as Jeff put it, the only reason for not using Scrum is the fear of increasing your own productivity.