Sleeping sheepdog on flickr by alexvalentine, http://www.flickr.com/photos/41006494@N00/379686989)

Once upon in time, a Scrum Master was asked by a large company to help introduce Scrum in one of their most important and strategic projects. The Scrum Master asked for the company’s motivation to use Scrum and was told that a project which was kicked-off 6 months ago wasn’t showing much progress and that the bosses wanted to see results and that the deadline was already looming. So the project sponsors decided to adapt to a more promising approach about which they have heard good things – Scrum. If Scrum was successful, it was planned to apply it to all projects in the department.

The Scrum Master explained that  Scrum is not a silver bullet but – if applied correctly – a great way to help the team improve by helping it focus on the right things, by creating transparency and by doing so surfacing issues which keep the Scrum team from being more productive. The project sponsors liked what they heard and a few days later, the Scrum Master joined the project.

to be continued… part 2