I struggled in the past when people asked me to explain Scrum quickly, without using metaphors or success stories. Mostly, people from business, when I asked them to explore why they must know. I was like, How is it possible? They just wanted to know the essential elements of Scrum and process flow. I learned how to teach in less than 10 minutes to generate interest, and the rest is continuous learning. Earlier, I was giving them a lot more analogies like football vs. rugby (moving ball but moving unit). However, these analogies were time-consuming and sometimes confused people as they delved deeper into explaining the game, starting with the Scrum framework.
Why I agreed to teach in less than 10 mins?
Because the majority of them had a very usual answer – "Hey Naveen, I know it is something to do with the software team, but I am not part of it." You know, if someone doesn't show interest, then getting time to discuss further is also tricky. It was vital for me to teach in the first meeting itself, rather than asking to schedule another appointment for the same purpose. 😊
What was I going to teach them in less than 10 minutes or 5 minutes? It was not very easy to discuss and explain, so I carried a notepad and pencil to quickly draw, while teaching, to help them understand how it works. This approach has helped me a lot in guiding how the framework works. After years of drawing on paper, I am putting the same drawing here in the video for reusability. Additionally, I aim to share this with individuals interested in understanding how Scrum operates.
For the last three years, I have been working more closely with product management, underwriting, risk & compliance, marketing, sales, human resources, supply chain, operations, quality, and audit compared to software development. This kind of quick explanation helps me to generate interest in further discussion. It also helps me in teaching Scrum Master and Product Owner classes.
I have covered only the essential elements of Scrum and the purpose of those elements. If you find this useful, feel free to share and subscribe to our YouTube channel for a deep dive into the essential elements of the Scrum framework.