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Please don’t start running your saas-bahu saga minds here. As the well known agilist, Ken Schwaber said once –

“Scrum is like your mother-in-law, It’s constantly pointing out your shortcomings.”

I have 2 mother-in-laws, one my own and the other one is the Agile process we run.

May be unbelievable but true. Me and my mother-in-laws goes pretty well, almost like friends. The secret behind this friendship is the way I approached the entire relationship with Shu–Ha–Ri, the Japanese martial concept which describes the stages of learning to mastery..

Shu– Obey the Rules

Ha–   Analyze the Rules

Ri–    Make new Rules

This way they know, that I am not a rebel, but I am not even a blind follower. I am an intelligent thinker, which establishes a harmony between both of us to accept the changes that bring positive impact.
Shu–Ha–Ri is s a Japanese martial art concept, and describes the stages of learning to mastery. Though its related to fight, however that also means its related to survival. Which in turn also mean that its related to LIFE.

The person who says in the start, “My house my rules” will always have a bitter relationship with the mother-in-law. As you have never tried to understand why she had certain rules and the logic behind them. In the end everything fails as your logic is without experience and now you have even lost the support of the experienced person by pissing her off.

Same applies to Agile project management too. I see many organizations trying to devise their own version of Scrum/Lean/Safe. However most of them are doing it

  • without following the process and identifying the gaps
  • and assuming that the current process will not work without even trying.

The process ultimately will fail because,

  • You don’t know what challenges the original process solved.
  • You became a Trishanku (in limbo), who has not totally adapted agile nor moved away from faulty and unnecessary practices of traditional process.
  • In new process you spend a lot of time in solving the older problems which were solved by original process as for you these problems are new
  • You lost the experienced learning from original process creators.

So an advice for any organization/individual trying to adopt agile:

First identify a fitting framework, follow it to the dot for sometime (3-4 months), then inspect and adapt based on your learnings.

Though in case of original Mother-in-law the following period is a bit longer, kinda 4-5 years, however if you can believe me, its the key to successful married life 😉

Happy Living!!!