Since the appearance of Scrum, it has been used as the most popular agile framework . One of the main reasons why Scrum has been so widely used for a long time is that it is extremely simple and focuses only on the essence of software development: the PDCA cycle and consistency.
PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act), created by Walter Shewhart at Bell Telephone Laboratories in the 1920s, is the foundation of software development as well as all business activities. Regardless of the type of software and business, PDCA should be practiced to improve processes. Jeff Sutherland realized that the PDCA cycle is too slow and long in waterfall management and defined "Sprint", which is short-term, commonly 1 or 2 weeks, to be practiced in a cyclical manner . He borrowed the idea from the Toyota Production System (TPS), emphasizing that work should flow like a river.
Ohno Taiichi, the father of TPS, noticed that when work flows like a indonesia telegram data river, employees produce results efficiently and effectively. To create workflow in software development, Jeff Sutherland defined all Scrum events: Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective at the same time, with the same duration, in the same place, and with the same people in Sprint. It has changed the game of software development.
However, I recently discovered that there is another essence to Scrum, which lies in the Scrum roles. Simon Sinek, author of the international bestseller Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action , codified the “Golden Circle,” which explains how influential companies, products, and leaders differ from mediocre ones. I realized that the Golden Circle is exactly the same as the Scrum roles: product owner, scrum master, and developer. I’ll explain it in more detail.
What is Simon Sinek's Golden Circle?
The Golden Circle has three layers: why, how, and what. The “Why” layer is in the center, the “How” layer is the middle layer, and the “What” layer is the outermost layer. Influential companies, products, and leaders start with why, meaning they clarify and know the reason why they do what they do. We also commonly call this vision and mission. Ordinary companies, products, and people, on the other hand, start with what, how to develop products or services without vision or mission.
For example, Google's corporate vision is "to give people access to the world's information with a single click." Based on that vision, they developed the Google search engine, Google Drive, Google Maps, Gmail, etc. All of their products consistently point to their vision. They start with "why."
Ordinary companies, on the other hand, start with “what.” They start by saying, “We want to make more profits and AI is a trend now, so we created a product with AI.” However, money is not the reason (why) but the results (what). Simon Sinek expresses that the reason for the company’s existence is not money but its mission and vision. Since OpenAI created ChatGPT, numerous companies have suddenly launched AI services and products to move forward. However, most of them started with “what,” so their fate is already doomed. The current trend of AI is the same as the dot-com bubble, Lehman Brothers, and the rise of Bitcoin.