HBOโs Silicon Valley and Scrum
Weโve seen agile practices, and specifically Scrum used across a variety of industries and fields.
Scrum continues to gain exposure, this time on a new HBO TV series.
American sitcom โSilicon Valleyโ centers around six tech-geeks who live together, trying to make it big in Silicon Valley, California.
In the โScrumโ episode, we see a project team utilizing a story task board to visually illustrate the process of their productโs development.
For anyone involved in a transition to agile practices, several aspects of this episode hit close to home.
Resistance. There is always resistance to change, at first. For this startup, implementing something new made it feel like it โjust became a job.โ For others, it can be a threat to tradition and the way things have always been done.
Transparency. Although the team members in the episode seemed to think the new system was a waste of time at first, it didnโt take long before there was some competition (perhaps not so healthy at first). Competition isnโt always the desired outcome of transparency, but accountability sure is.
Accountability. In the episode, we see the beginnings of team accountability, especially when Jared corrects one of the developers by saying, โIโm pretty happy with ourself.โ
Most agile professionals may cringe at how aspects of Scrum are portrayed in the episode, but one thing is for sureโthe agile movement is more mainstream as it catches Hollywoodโs attention.
Enjoy a clip from this โSilicon Valleyโ episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP2zznwCeZI
