In many (IT) partnerships and implementations people seem to prefer to strangle each other rather than assure mutual benefits.
I’m applying Scrum (over 4 years already), in my projects and in my management. It continuously helps me to cross fences; between suppliers and customers, business and IT, analysts and developers, x-layer developers and y-layer developers, etc.
In my Scrum-based development process I use Pre-Game Staging to name the barely enough preparative phase for 1 stage of software development. The “Games” metaphor was described by Alistair Cockburn in his biblical work Agile Software Development. I strongly agree with him that software development should be a Cooperative Game.
- Cooperative: a team of people works together towards a common goal, not to fight each other.
- Non-zero sum: the players are not opposed and do not try to win by getting the other at zero. There are multiple winners.
- Finite and goal-seeking: the game ends when the goal is achieved. The game is not meant for just staying in existence.
You will find this as well in the integrated prerequisite for supplier-customer relationships (possibly multi-tier), from Toyota’s Lean Production to Poppendieck’s Lean Software Development. It offers far more certainties than our commonly applied bidding processes. Think (read) about it!
