HBO’s Silicon Valley and Scrum
We’ve 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 “Silicon Valley” centers around six tech-geeks who live together, trying to make it big in Silicon Valley, California.
In the “Scrum” episode, we see a project team utilizing a story task board to visually illustrate the process of their product’s 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 “just became a job.” 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 didn’t take long before there was some competition (perhaps not so healthy at first). Competition isn’t 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, “I’m pretty happy with ourself.”
Most agile professionals may cringe at how aspects of Scrum are portrayed in the episode, but one thing is for sure—the agile movement is more mainstream as it catches Hollywood’s attention.
Enjoy a clip from this “Silicon Valley” episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP2zznwCeZI
