• Agile & Scrum Basics

Agile and Scrum for non-IT does not exist!

So, that’s out… With some regularity, the phone rings and emails come in asking: are your trainings also suitable for our company and my position in non-IT? Yes, but of course! Because it’s very simple. Agile and Scrum for non-IT does not exist, for that matter neither does IT.

Somewhere the perception has emerged that there is an Agile approach for IT and one for the world outside IT. And that there is a set of ground rules that works for Scrum with zeros and ones and one for marketing and communications, for example, and one within governments. Nonsense! But the fact that that image has been created is not at all surprising.

Soft-where?
Scrum originated in the IT corner and so rolled on to other sectors. Its origins are in software. The official Agile Manifesto is still called Manifesto for Agile Software Development. The Agile Principles also mention the word Software with regularity. And Scrum.org, which publishes the Scrum Guide, has as its mission: To improve the profession of Software Delivery. All reasons to believe that Agile & Scrum is primarily intended for IT projects and companies.

At the same time, you would think that there must also be such a thing as Agile and Scrum for non-IT. This while in the Scrum Guide the word software appears only twice. Those two times it is mentioned, it looms as an example for Scrum application:

1. For example, for developing software.
2. For developing products and services: in schools, within governments, museums, marketing and music.

While Scrum.org still positions itself in the IT corner, Agile and Scrum have already been (re)developed much more widely in the world.

Do you know what you are doing?
Replace the word Software with Product or Service and you will see that it applies to your work as well. There is no such thing as Agile and Scrum for non-IT. It’s a universal view of your business, with a universal set of ground rules. Name a complex task and you’ll fly it perfectly with Agile. To then quickly discover and learn how your product is received by customers. And to learn how to organize it even smarter. In any industry…

Wherever you work, whatever your service, service or product…. There is always room with the set of ground rules for your organization, department and team to flourish with Agile and Scrum. At IT companies AND non-IT companies. There is no such thing as Agile and Scrum for non-IT. Just like there is no such thing as Agile and Scrum for IT. Applying it properly in your context. That’s the biggest challenge. And that has nothing to do with Agile or Scrum for IT or non-IT but everything to do with your strength, drive, vision as an individual and team to make the most of this mindset and set of ground rules.

By the way, this does not mean that you can just cherry-pick, taking some elements out of the rules of the game and not challenging your own status quo. If you want to work differently, achieve different goals, then with Agile and Scrum you will also have to be willing to change course with that set of rules. The order is: challenge the status quo first and only then tweak if something doesn’t work.

The challenge of us as trainers and coaches at Scrum Academy is to educate and coach participants so that everyone will experiment with confidence and find the best way to work Agile.