Friday, November 28, 2008

Is Barack Obama the "Scrum President"?

The first moment I thought President Elect Barack Obama might be the first "Scrum President" was while I was watching Obama's Inner Circle Shares Inside Story on 60 Minutes.  David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, mentioned how his team only planned for days instead of years.  They were "more agile" and "not afraid to take risks". Now, just because someone says "agile" doesn't mean they follow scrum, but I haven't heard many politicians talk like this group does.

There are a few quotes from another story, Obama On Economic Crisis, Transition, that have elements of "inspect and adapt"
[It] is not always getting it right, but projecting a sense of confidence, and a willingness to try things. And experiment in order to get people working again.
If something doesn’t work that they’re gonna try something else until they find something that does.’
If the idea is right for the times then we’re gonna apply it. And things that don’t work we’re gonna get rid of.
Regarding transparency, Obama said this:
I think that we have to restore a sense of trust, transparency, openness in our financial system.
Scrum is also very big on the concept of "team".  During the week of Thanksgiving (which I don't have a direct reference to, but heard on KNX 1070 radio), Obama said in that America will succeed or fail as one people.

I know I am drawing conclusions on some very loose quotes, and I doubt anyone in Obama's campaign ever said, "Hey, let's run a scrum campaign," but I am seeing enough of an agile spirit, which is the most important thing. 

Scrum and Agile have worked very well for me in software engineering, and I hope it works out well for politics and government too.

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