Scrum not only in projects

When you work for one of London’s leading Agile companies it is hard not to get inspired by the scrum processes. Inspired or brainwashed your choice, but I adopted some of the scrum processes when I was the Office Manager.

To have daily stand ups on my own does sound a bit strange, even though me, myself and I do have some really good ideas! But to have a weekly planning game on what to get done each week is pretty useful. I find estimating each task with story points is pushing it a little bit too far, but t-shirt sizes work really well.

If you are as lucky as me to have a board next to your desk you can create your own task board, there is nothing as rewarding then to see all your stories in done on a Friday afternoon.

The task board could also come in handy if you have an appraisal with your boss, you can easily say: “Yes, I have done all of this and I’m about to do the following”, as a show and tell!  A session where you can show off all your amazing work, but also time for questions and input from the stakeholders i.e. your boss.

You can even have a retrospective, where you can have a look back and see what tasks can be done more efficiently next time, if there are any impediments that are blocking your usually smooth progress. Doing this on your own might also seem a bit odd but I’m sure there are people around the office that you can assign actions to and follow up on previously assigned actions. Get people involved!

I think this proves that scrum is not only a very useful project process but a lifestyle! Maybe I am a little brainwashed but it works for me and I’m pretty sure that scrum would work in most situations and industries. You should try it.