Jeff Lake

Jeff Lake

I got excited about scrum in 2005 after reading Ken Schwaber's book Agile Project Management with Scrum and converted my team to it. They liked it. Some reasons for this were more efficiency (meaning more velocity or delivery of the key features valued by management), and not ending up with a pile of bugs at the end but instead maintaining much better quality throughout the development cycle.

At a subsequent job I was running all software for the company and converted them over and they liked it too, from the CEO on down.  The results were similar but even better.  Planning for the company became better as they learned what was coming and when and avoided the bad quality surprises they had experienced in the past.

The team communication and visibility are the best parts. Emphasis on prioritization is key too. I also have experienced organic growth into more of a team atmosphere that is fun to participate in - everyone jumps in and starts solving things as a true team.