What about those who will not Scrum?

In Software Development and Human Capital today, Scott Dunn writes:

"Going through Good to Great again, I was struck by Jim Collins statement that the best companies hire self-disciplined people who don't need to be managed, and the leadership manages the system, not the people.

"One of Scrum's principles is that the teams are self-managing. But I can see now that that principle still depends on having the right people on the team – disciplined people. Just because I'm running scrum doesn't mean that someone on the team who wasn't previously self-managing or disciplined suddenly becomes disciplined."

On one level, I agree with Scott, but on another, I wanted to point out that Scrum makes self-management solves this problem through the transparency provided by the Daily Stand-ups and Sprint Burndown Chart.

Scott said:

"The opportunity is there for them, and hopefully peers around them to model after, but the brutal facts might be that there are team members who will never become self-managing, self-disciplined."

Some team members may not be disciplined as Scott mentioned—and some may be really good at hiding the fact that they are not disciplined—but you can count on Scrum to shine the light on those folks and force them out of their caves.

"Perhaps the team manages these people off their team, but if the team and process doesn't gel immediately (average of several sprints before typically gelled and consistent), then the ScrumMaster or management may be the first to deal with whether a person is right for the team."

The team will prompt the slackers to become more disciplined. If this pressure from the team is too much, they will seek employment elsewhere, but in the end, the Scrum practitioners will have a solid team.