Every member of SCRUM development team knows that there are many quality and productivity related things that should be done as part of day to day working like Automation Tests Security Vulnerability Testing Innovation & Patenting Optimizing memory consumption and Coming up with Proper interfaces to name a few…!!! Unfortunately for the SCRUM teams, these activities are considered as by product of day to day development activities which is NOT true. No only this, the regular sprint activities doesn’t give any spare time to concentrate on these activities. Fortunately, there are ways to make sure that our sprints could also be used for these items. This session was intended to discuss the same

2. Wait a Minute……!!!!
What SPRINTS has to do with Innovations and Creativity?

3. You’ll are aware of it
Let’s not discuss what
Agile / Scrum is

5. Innovation is…….

6. Innovation is defined simply as a "new idea, device, or method".
However, innovation is often also viewed as the application of better
solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing
market needs.
This is accomplished through more-effective products, processes,
services, technologies, or business models that are readily available
to markets, governments and society. The term "innovation" can be
defined as something original and more effective and, as a
consequence, new, that "breaks into" the market or society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation

7. Creativity is……. Creativity Is

8. Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow
valuable is formed.
The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific
theory, a musical composition or a joke) or a physical object (such as
an invention, a literary work or a painting).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity

9. How to bring Creativity & Innovation within
SPRINTs?

10. User Story - 1 8 Story Points
Innovation 5 Story Points
Creativity 13 Story Point
User Story - n 3 Story Points

11. Unfortunately, Innovations and Creativity
Can’t be planned. Certainly not in this way

12. Why?

13. Because we’re
Human
Because we’re Humans

14. Can’t think and act like cyborg

19. We generally consider Agile Software Development as a silver bullet
solution of the day to day activities
However, did we forget that?

21. Every human will use its own talent to
use the process, which may be
drastically different from others

22. We Say Good Driver or Bad Driver NOT
Good Car or Bad Car

24. Let’s take a quiz…..!!!

25. What’s common here?

26. All these event happens
after 4 year interval

27. What if they start
happening every year or
worst after every few
months?

28. Apart from logistics,
people will start losing
interests.

29. Why?

30. It will become
monotonous

31. Boring Lack of Creative
thinking
Yearning of something
new or different
Lack of
Satisfaction
Impacts mental
well being

32. ❏ Life without weekends.
❏ Life with only one type of weather (summer / winter)
❏ Driving on same roads all the time
❏ Being at the same place all your life
❏ Eating same food all the time
❏ The list goes on...
Consider….!!!

33. Let’s discuss SPRINTS
Let’s come back to our
Agile World

36. So Why / How do we change it?

37. Without change there is no innovation,
creativity, or incentive for improvement.
Those who initiate change will have a
better opportunity to manage the change
that is inevitable.
William Pollard

38. What organizations like Google / Atlassian Does to keep innovation
engine running within employees?
❏ The 20% rule at google : where employees are free to work on
anything of their choice during that time.
❏ Same arrangement is being done at Atlassian (The Jira
Company)

39. Unfortunately, 99.9% of
managers will outrightly
reject these ideas as cost
ineffective solution and
something which will not
directly serve the
organization or the client

40. Fortunately for Google, Most of their flagship products like Google
News, GMail, Adsense etc originated out of these 20%

41. Every change involve Experiments

42. All life is an
experiment, the
more experiments
you make the better
Ralph Waldo Emerson

43. Experiments help in better decision
making

44. SPRINTS : As enabler of innovation and
creativity
How?

45. Some experiments
worth considering

46. How about theme based sprints ?
A themed sprint is one where a set of work is based on a particular
theme. There is no sprint planning required for this sprint where each
and every individual is working just on the theme

47. ❏ Automation Testing
❏ Product Security
❏ Memory / Disk Utilization
❏ Interface Design
❏ Evaluation of 3rd party API and libraries
❏ But they are not. They generally takes the back seat
because it doesn’t directly impact the end user
functionality
Activities which are generally considered as byproduct
of Sprint Work

48. ❏ Automation Testing
❏ Product Security
❏ Memory / Disk Utilization
❏ Interface Design
❏ Evaluation of 3rd party API and libraries
How about a SPRINT dedicated to one of these
activities / Themes

49. ❏ Minimal Duration ~ not more than 1 week
❏ No sprint planning : Teams will decide what they want to
achieve next in the theme.
❏ Every Team and team member will work on achieving the
goal
❏ At the end of the SPRINT : showcase what teams achieved
Steps towards Themed Sprints

50. How about UnPlanned Sprints ?
An UnPlanned sprint is one where teams are free to pick items of their
choice. The items may not be in accordance with priority in Product
Backlog

51. ❏ Sprint Team is free to choose items from Backlog
❏ How and what they do with the backlog item is completely
up to the teams
❏ Breaking backlog items into smaller ones
❏ Prototyping
❏ At the end of the Sprint, Team demonstrate what they chose
and what is the results.
❏ They can add a rationale of taking the items and how it can
be useful in future
Steps towards UnPlanned Sprints

52. Use your OWN creativity

53. Companies should create
consistency of purpose
towards improvement of
product and service, with
the aim to become
competitive and to stay in
business and to provide
jobs
Demings

54. We’re Humans
Just Remember
Remember : We’re Humans

55. @AgileJaya facebook.com/AgileJaya
Thank You