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The Change You Always Wanted To Lead

The Change You Always Wanted To Lead

What is Scrum?

Scrum is a methodology, a way to move teams toward relentless improvement and innovation so that work is completed, goals are met, something is ready to release and what you learn from the process will help you build a practice that continues to produce consistent, predictable results.

Whether you are working through adaptive change (and if you are living in 2022, you are), new leadership models, community engagement, programmatic shifts, staff alignment, mission re-focus, leaning into Scrum might be the most effective use of time you will spend on the organization.

In my experience, churches are lethally inefficient.

There. I said it.

So much of what happens day to day feels like ‘hamster on a wheel‘ syndrome. Or, perhaps for those alpha types, running a marathon on a treadmillitis. It’s a whole lot of movement, but where are you going?

I’ve spoken to so many pastors who have lost their energy, their inspiration, their hope – and it doesn’t have to be like this! Pastor, it doesn’t.

**Enter Scrum**

Once Upon A Time…software companies put up lots of time, money and manpower and made huge promises to their customers: “On such and such a date we will release a new product that will transform the way you do whatever you do!” Problem is, on such and such a date, there wasn’t a release because the product wasn’t fully developed; or worse, there was a release because the product was so buggy, the most anticipated features weren’t usable. Ugh!

Bottlenecks inside development/operations were too much of an obstruction for a clean release.

Some of the issues were: escalating conflict, siloing between departments, lack of communication, no transparency in the work being done (or not being done), competing agendas, inefficient chains of command, absence of good and valuable feedback and a comfortable acquiescence for status quo in a vague and rapidly changing environment.

Of course, that isn’t a comprehensive list and my Agilist/Scrum Master betters could do a way better job drilling down on them (I’ve basically just reviewed “The Phoenix Project“), but it should sound familiar to pastors and ministry leaders. The thing is that the tech world incubated the means to address these issues and built a light framework to adapt and overcome them: Scrum. It’s not perfect. There are still bottlenecks, conflicts and issues, but a framework exists to empower people to learn, grow, change and move forward.

The Church, though…has it?

In his book, Canoeing The Mountains, Tod Bolsinger writes:

“To live up to their name, local churches must be continually moving out, extending themselves into the world, being the missional, witnessing community we were called into being to be: the manifestation of God’s going into the world, crossing boundaries, proclaiming, teaching, healing, loving, serving and extending the reign of God.

In short, churches must keep adventuring or die.”

Tod Bolsinger

How can you adventure when you lack staff alignment? When risk and result are bad words?When you lose sight of the goal because the target keeps moving? When small committees stall large adaptive change? When you aren’t sure why you are doing what you are doing?

Scrum can help.

If you choose adventure, take this journey with me. The journey I’m calling Scrum for Church. It won’t be a silver bullet, but once you start, the hamster wheel won’t be where you find yourself running!

Church and Scrum is Awesome!

Church and Scrum is Awesome!

Hi! I’m Chris. Nice to meet you.

It’s my belief that the hidden mysteries of Scrum have so much to offer the way you lead, live and inspire your staff, teams and church!

What is Scrum? Good question.

I’ve asked that one a lot as well. Scrum is a methodology that was born in the IT sector and has since found a home in nearly every professional domain you can think of. It has a light and easy to read definition, but the questions is, “How does that change what I do?” “How does Scrum affect an organization that has nothing to do with building software?”

Great! Put a pin in that question. I believe that your church, the way you lead, the results you want has everything to do with building software.

So, let’s dial in on Scrum and look at what it is from the benefits that we can see, measure and reproduce.

What is Scrum? Good question.

What if I told you that there was a way to reduce and eliminate the toxicity in your staff in some pretty simple and effective ways?

What if I told you that you could leave meetings feeling like mountains were going to move, teams were clear in their objectives and more over, knew how they were going to accomplish them?

Sound too good to be true?

I could go on (and will), but by applying some adaptive learning from successful models outside our current systems we can nurture transformation from the inside out! And that will have have a profound effect on what actually ends up happening.

I love the the Church, and it so happens, I also love Scrum. They can both work together and when they do, it’s the kind of thing you wake up in the morning excited to get back to.

Think of it as a “Hey! You got your chocolate in my peanut butter” moment.

Scrum for Church is an idea, a dream, a movement that reaches into values, practices and disciplines that inspire people to give their best and unleashes them inside a staff that is stuck, root bound, maybe even ready to give up. Most everyone on your team is ready to do more than they can ask or imagine. The problem is our structure aren’t set up for that. If anything, they tend to work against it. It doesn’t have to be this way.

I’m inviting you to join me on a journey into something new. It’s not easy, but stick with me and I think you’ll agree that it’s worth it!

Make sure and connect so you won’t miss Scrum for Church when new posts are released. We are headed somewhere exciting together. I can’t give you a map, though. Where’s the adventure in that?

To See Or Not To See. That Is The Question.

To See Or Not To See. That Is The Question.

Is the workflow of your organization lethally inefficient? 

As a leader, do you have a tool to see what is actually being done? 

Yes, you do! It’s called Transparency

One of the kindest services a scrum master can do for his or her team and for the organization as a whole is to create transparency – to radiate information. Transparency allows us to see flaws, and when we see the flaws we can make the choice to do something about them. We can stop being victims of process and start being warriors of change.”

Tobias Mayer

In the last article, we looked at Transparency as a means to share common understanding broadly. It’s important to create an environment where any and all questions can be asked safely and with confidence. 

Questions help everyone know what they are supposed to be doing and more importantly, why they are doing it. Know your why!

Today, let’s look at Transparency from another direction: Visibility.

In Scrum, visibility is the way that work is seen, known and where accountability is introduced. While it might feel threatening, by making work visible we can help each other, whether it’s checking in with questions and offers of help, or checking up on deadlines and hand offs. 

Interestingly, when work becomes visible, we are able not only to visualize what we have to do and when it needs to be done — or in stages of done-ness if we are using something like Kanban — but, we are able to see how our work directly affects the work of others. We can see how others are affected by what we do and what we don’t do. 

And others can see how their work affects us! 

It may sound strange, but done well this creates an environment of trust. 

If it’s visible, it can be seen. If it’s seen, it can be talked about. If it can be talked about, clarity will find it’s way into our communication. When that happens…look out! Good communication about thing that matter to us, things that we care about, changes us. 

“We believe that transparency is needed to create trust, and it’s also needed to create a dialogue.”

Julia Sweet

It’s interesting but true. By making sure that work is visible, big things are transformed when people feel heard. 

Or…there’s always the cloak of invisibility. 

To see or not to see? That is the question. 

As you walk around the workplace, can you see the work that is being done? The work that is going to be done?