Facilitating a Zombie Scrum Workshop with Liberating Structures
About a year ago I got surprised by the article The Rise of Zombie Scrum written by Christiaan Verwijs e Johannes Schartau and its expansion by Barry Overeem. Zombie Scrum is a metaphor for a Scrum implementation full of anti-agile dysfunctions that prevent the team from delivering value. Its beauty is in how it confronts the team’s practices and beliefs against Scrum’s values and pillars.
It was my first reading about agile anti-patterns. So far, I knew reference books that only tell “what to do” or “how we do it here”. The majority of social networks posts also describe the happy side of teams that are struggling to really be agile.
Later, I had a the opportunity to present Zombie Scrum in one of my company’s Architecture meetups. It took me 45 minutes to talk about its symptoms, causes and treatment for a public mainly comprised of software architects that work with me. The session was valuable for them, they shared their own experiences and perceptions and doubts.
The presentation was ready, refined and rehearsed to be repeated in one of the dojos promoted by our Agile Governance area to a bigger public in my company.
At the same period, I started to study Liberating Structures, “a language for interaction in groups”, in Verwijs’ elegant definition.
Right at the beginning of the book The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures, by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless, I was sold to the idea that LSs (Liberating Structures) are much more capable of engaging people than those old Big Five formats: presentation, status report, brainstorm, open discussion and managed discussion. But I decided to put that certainty to a test.
I had a two-hour session for the dojo, so instead of only presenting the same material, I wanted to facilitate a Zombie Scrum workshop with Liberating Structures.
My objective was the workshop was fun and insightful to the attendants for all its duration, and that no one was caught checking their phone in a moment of boredom.
The way I chose was to mix some LSs to the existing slides. I reached Verwijs and Overeem on LinkedIn and told them my plan. They gave full support and tips.
For my preparation, I attended two workshops in June 2019, both facilitated by Overeem in São Paulo, Brazil: a day long one about Liberating Structures and a two-hour one on fighting Zombie Scrum with Liberating Structures. They were both spectacular events, I witnessed how LSs area powerful to engage each individual in a group and harvest their knowledge.
What follows is my report of how I delivered the workshop, the LSs used, what I did right, what I did wrong, and what I learned in this experience.
But before that, I have to say that in both workshops delivered by Overeem, he used an exotic tool to grab people’s attention with sympathy and efficacy: a pair of small Tibetan Budhism’s ceremonial cymbals called ting sha. These instruments make a nice and crystalline sound when banged lightly on each other.
Those cymbals are a efficient tool to the facilitators voice.
Now, to the event.
I prepared the room placing the chairs at the walls making one big semi-circle, with space for people to move.
In the minutes preceding the workshop, I put some music to play, to create an atmosphere of energy and lightness. I know it’s a matter of taste, but I think the Guardians of the Galaxy films soundtracks do a great job.
I presented myself to the almost twenty attendants, that were Scrum Masters, Product Owners and Developers.
Impromptu Network
I asked the attendants to gather in doubles for an ice-breaker with the Impromptu Network LS.
The invitation: what challenges you currently have in your Scrum team and what are your expectations for this session?
It were three rounds two minutes each, with people alternating the doubles. It were short but significant interactions, with people sharing experiences right away. In the following debrief, people reported patterns forming, points in common with other people, it was positive to create the feeling that they were all together aboard the same boat.
Next, I talked a little about how the market approaches only the Scrum’s theory, but when team start to practice it, some dysfunctions show themselves without the team realizing it. So begins The Rise of the Zombie Scrum.
TRIZ with 1–2–4-All
Time to experiment with TRIZ, a creative destruction tailored LS. In the first phase, I asked people to imagine and to enumerate the characteristics of Scrum implementations that are guaranteed to make the team fail definitely. It was a individual and silent exercise, with paper sheets and pens.
Next, people gathered in doubles to consolidate theirs lists and then again when the doubles gathered in groups of four. The groups also chose the most critical item and shared with the whole group.
I made a pause in TRIZ to come back to PowerPoint to present the Zombie Scrum Research Team — Verwijs, Schartau e Overeem — and their approach to Zombie Scrum: symptoms, causes and treatment.
Then, I spend some time explaining the four symptoms, focusing on the lack of working software that is Scrum’s pulsing heart and how a weak Definition of Done is related to this symptom.
Back to TRIZ. In the second phase, I asked people to be honest with themselves and to make a second list with the items in the first list that are present in their environment. It was also done with the 1–2–4-All structure.
Back to PowerPoint to explain Zombie Scrum’s six causes, focusing on the lack of the sense of urgency motivated by lack of alignment and transparency on what value is to the company.
When the time came to TRIZ’s third phase, I was almost out of time, so instead, I skipped it and spent the remaining time explaining Zombie Scrum’s six treatments. I invited the attendants to join the Zombie Scrum Resistance and closed the session.
What I did right
My preparation was solid. Lipmanowicz’ e McCandless’ book gave me the theoretic foundation and Overeem’s workshops were essential for me to see the LSs working on the field.
The session’s public was exactly the one I intended to reach: Scrum practitioners, mainly Scrum Masters.
What I did wrong
To present all the symptoms, causes and treatments costed me dear time and is not so compelling to the attendants as the discussion between them.
To not manage time properly. Often people were so intensely debating, leaned forward to their colleagues that I decided not to interrupt them.
In consequence of these decision, there wasn’t enough time to TRIZ’ third phase: the problem solution. Therefore, I couldn’t make each group experiment with the Troika Consulting LS for their most critical problem and 15% Solution for the next two or three most important problems.
What I learned
Instead of follow the original material entirely, I should have explained only the Zombie Scrum’s core: the lack of the beating working software heart that pumps value to the company. I should do that and invite people to read the original articles to then know all the symptoms, causes and treatments. The rest of the time would them be spend experimenting with Liberating Structures.
Time management is fundamental to guarantee the realization of all planned activities. To interrupt conversations at the right time maybe could make people compelled to resume some of them with theirs peers after the event.
Feedback
During the workshop delivery, I received feedback that people were much more active and engaged than in other dojos.
At the final debrief, people gave good reviews. I felt they were excited to have participated in that session. And no one was caught checking their cell phone!
After the event, I confessed to one of the Scrum Masters that attended it that there wasn’t enough time to practice all the LSs, mas he said he liked the LSs the we could practice and found the PowerPoint content very useful.
Conclusion
The attendants are definitely prepared to diagnose, prevent and to treat, a Zombie Scrum infestation.
I confirmed the initial hypothesis: Liberating Structures do engage people in the contents of the discussion and the shaping of the next steps. Now I have a nice mission of keep learning LS and using ever more.
This learning and sharing journey was so pleasant, even with my imperfect delivery. But there is always a next opportunity to improve.
Acknowledgements
To my dear sister Karen, who lent me her ting sha, that I may return one day, or not. :D
To Camila Melo, for the organization, support and feedback.
And my special thanks to Barry Overeem and Christiaan Verwijs, for the inspiration and support. I strongly recommend to you all to know The Liberators’ work.
To know more
Scrum Zumbi: my very short article about Zombie Scrum, in Portuguese only.
The Rise of Zombie Scrum: the original article, very detailed and fun to read.
Zombie Scrum — Symptoms, Causes and Treatment: the expansion article, with new causes and treatments.
Liberating Structures: the website with all the LSs explained.
