Both good points. I especially like your comments about the project board being a part of the team. I fully agree. I think this is where it often goes wrong with solo PRINCE2 implementations. The project board is seen as something formal which you have to put up with, where the project board can actually add a lot of value to the project.

Martin

This brings us to point 4: it is never ideal to have one central person knowing all etc. Scrum is all about sharing knowlegde and power (management) in the underlying concepts. When a project leader cannot find the right ‘roles’ in his environment, he should take this serious point about no one taking their responsibility (due to lack of time, busy agenda, scared, whatever reason), to the ‘boss’. Because you cannot deliver if your environment is not working with you. You are all in it together, a team and its members should never be alone. A project board works is indeed a good solution, but not in strict Prince 2 terms I think, but in such a way, that these members realise that they are ‘not’ in control, but are part of the ‘team’.

Like they founders of Lean development said when I followed a course: Software engineering is at least 40 years behind the industrial world. I like it that people like you are trying to find tools and to match them to improve their way of working.

Thanks for your comments. I concur with (most ) of your comments. I also think that Scrum is a tool. I’m not blaming the tool Scrum for being too simplistic or anything else. I love Scrum, especially because it’s lightweight and is intended to be customized for each project. Of course the title implies that I’m not happy with Scrum, sorry for that.

My blog focuses on getting things done as a project manager. The case I’m trying to make is that it’s not the tool that does the job, it’s the people that use the tools. The project management plays an important role in this in choosing the right tools, and especially in choosing an effective implementation of these tools, but ultimately it’s all about the people that do the job. Scrum is my favorite tool, but I also think that often PRINCE2 adds value as an additional tool.

Now the specifics:
1.
I agree, it’s not the tool, it’s how you use it.

2.
For example: How do you know that you’re on track? In what way can you justify an additional investment in another Sprint?
Does the PO have unlimited power and resources to make his/her own decisions or does a higher level of accountability exist?
That’s why PRINCE2 uses the concept of a Business Case. Scrum doesn’t have this concept.
In real life there always exists a business case, formally defined or not, it’s still there. You want some something for your money and have to balance investments and projected outcome.
Using PRINCE2 as an additional project management tool complements Scrum very well in this.
It’s useful in creating a valid definition of Business Value and it’s useful in measuring that you’re on track and also in making decisions about the project’s progress and getting approval for that.

3.
Managing stakeholder’s interests is not easy at all. I don’t mind that Scrum doesn’t have a process in place for this.
I do think that PRINCE2 adds value here, and yes, that’s my personal opinion and experience

4.
Ideally you are right, one person that knows all and has the authority that decide all is the best way getting things done.
And yes, Scrum says that the PO is not a committee, it’s one single person.
The problem I have with this is that in my experiences as a project manager, I usually can’t seem to find such a person.
Other people seem to have the same problems and have found solutions for that, like the proxy PO.
My solution is implementing a PRINCE2 project board.

5.
We are all professionals but someone is making the decisions and that’s the PO. That’s the person that’s responsible for creating business value and deciding about the number of Sprints. I’m sorry, but he is the one to ‘blame’.

6.
Any issue that can not be resolved by the team itself must/should be resolved somewhere else. It’s the CSM’s job to remove impediments (issues) but the SCM has no authority. Also the PO possibly has limited authority outside of the team. PRINCE2 has a nice process in place to manage these issues. The Project Board’s members usually have much more authority in both the customers and suppliers organizations when compared to the PO or CSM, are accountable for the project’s success and can be very helpful removing issues.

Thanks again for your comments Lars.

Rgds
Martin

Thanks for sharing your experiences. The tone of the title triggers me to respons …. I think there are some misunderstandings about Scrum in your blog:

1. Scrum is a tool that you can use to fulfill your goals. Same as XP is a tool, or Eclipse. IMHO you can never blame the tool. Only people using tools can be blamed (you choose the wrong tool). You can see Scrum like a set of game rules. Easy to explain, but hard to play and to win (and keep winning). Like playing chess is for instance.

2. “The business side of Scrum however is almost blank.”
What exactly do you mean? Scrum is all about adding business value. The constant focus on delivering potentially shippable products on which the business can validate their ideas. They have the opportunity to steer the project in the right direction every sprint.

3. “The most obvious gap with Scrum is the management of stakeholders.”
In Scrum the PO is responsible for stakeholder management. How he does that is not described by Scrum. So you have to figure that out yourself. Like you say there is no solution that fits all, so Scrum does not try to describe one. If PRINCE2 works for you that is great and you should keep using it.

4. “This task can be delegated to someone else (the ‘proxy Product Owner’) or to multiple persons.”
PO is Scrum is a single person. Proxy Product Owner is not a Scrum Role. It is a pattern that people use is the real PO is not onsite for instance, but it is suboptimal and should be avoided as much as possible IMHO.

5. There is no such thing as a ’single wringable neck’ in Scrum. We should abolish this term as soon as possible. IMHO the Scrum Team (Team, PO and scrummaster) are all responsible for the end product. We are all professionals right? Scrum officially says: If the product fails, the product owner is responsible, the scrummaster is accountable. So no single wringable neck.

6. “Scrum does provide some level of control with the Burndown charts and Product Backlog, but there’s no process in place to manage progress and issues on an executive level.”
What kind of issues are you talking about here?

Again Scrum is not complete. It says for instance nothing about which coding practice to use, how backlog items should look like etc. You have to figure that out yourself, I don’t think you should blame Scrum for this. I consider that one of its great powers.

Lars