During an update of our courses at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, I was told that we would no longer be teaching about planning poker in Scrum projects. Apparently, measuring velocity was no longer part of the orthodoxy. I found this puzzling, as I had taken the rituals of estimating and measuring velocity to be part of the core processes of Scrum. Had I misunderstood the framework, or were there other forces at play?
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No matter how engaging an experience is, or how much effort you put in designing cool rules and goals: If someone feels forced to engage in an activity, they will find it utterly boring. In this fourth and final part, we are addressing the last aspect of what makes a game fun: Voluntary participation. How does this notion apply to Scrum?
Feedback is a decisive aspect of human interactions. Be it in education, games, management, design or in interpersonal relationships, the way we communicate to people if they have met our expectations can have a strong impact on their future behaviours. Well-designed feedback loops are thus crucial for crafted experiences, and one of the main reasons behind the success of Scrum as a method.
After looking at the goal (part 1) and at the rules (part 2), we are continuing the exploration of the fun in Scrum with the third trait defining a game: The feedback system.
In the past few years I had the opportunity to explore various uses and dimensions of Scrum. On projects working with Scrum and the Agile philosophy, I always felt more energized, accomplished and enthusiastic. The atmosphere in my team was better, we were more productive, engaged, and overall we experienced much less stress. To put it simply: Working on projects with Scrum was fun. I started to ask myself why it was so much better to run a project with Scrum than without.
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