Reprinted from minjiekaifa.com
The original link: agile myth (2) : www.minjiekaifa.com/thehistoryo…
Many people are ordinary, not because of the lack of ability, but because of the lack of courage to take a step. Only a few people can go out of their way with courage and persistence. Ken Schwaber is such a person, he with his courage and persistence on the agile road to keep moving forward to realize his value. But along the way, it wasn’t all plain sailing…
1945. Ken Schwaber is born in Wheaton, Illinois. In the same year, the first tube computer was introduced. In the budding era of computer, Ken was full of curiosity about this new thing at a young age. He often had a lot of questions and ideas, and would consult his teachers and classmates with these questions.
As Ken grew older, he learned more and more about computer software and became more and more interested in it.
College. He attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. In the years of campus life, he not only completed the courses of his major, but also learned the knowledge related to software in his spare time. After graduation, Ken naturally became a merchant Marine manager. After a while, Ken decided that this wasn’t what he wanted. His passion was code and development. And so began Ken Schwaber’s 40-year career…
(Ken Schwaber)
In these forty years, Ken has spent ten years experiencing various interesting jobs. He wrote operating systems, embedded them, and even developed system software for IBM mainframes. He knows that there is no end to the road of software development. In order to improve his development technology, Ken has studied and worked in the university of Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology, and wang’s laboratory successively. These years of work and study experience helped him accumulate rich development experience, and his talent in software development gradually showed…
In the 1970s, the waterfall method was widely used in the software development industry and became the mainstream of software development. Not surprisingly, Ken also came into contact with waterfall development through his work. After learning more about waterfall, Ken realized that there were a lot of problems that were bothering him, and he felt that waterfall was draining the life out of software development. Until the 1980s, with the rapid development of the software industry, the lack of waterfall led to the popularity of the CASE tool (a tool that automates tasks for a specific software lifecycle) and the structured approach, and some newer ideas and methods began to sprout.
Even at the time, the market recognized CASE tools and waterfalls, but Ken Schwaber didn’t think they were right for him. He went in the opposite direction and made a decision that many would consider risky: he started his own business. He started a company that focused on training services for software development methods and named it “ADM.”
(Ken Schwaber)
On the one hand, Ken has worked in a number of Internet companies, and in this process, he has seen the problems in the operation of many companies. As a guide, Ken deliberately avoids these “pits” in the company he runs. On the other hand, as the founder, Ken’s ideas and values have greatly influenced ADM. He injected the merchant Marine Academy motto into his team, and under his leadership, his team also continued to study software tools in the spirit of “rigor and order”, and launched a software method automation tool — MATE, which was used to generate templates, plans, and so on for various software processes. MATE has received strong support from users since its launch.
Time confirmed his idea. Within a few years, the CASE tool declined and died due to design that was too detached from the actual needs of developers. Ken, with his unique acumen for software development and market preferences, began to think about whether there was a product that could make up for waterfall’s deficiencies, and that experience and thinking soared the seeds for Scrum to follow.
In the early 1980s, Ken Schwaber met Jeff Sutherland, a casual acquaintance with whom he had little to do with. In 1987, business needs led to an in-depth collaboration between Ken and Jeff. During a chat between the two of them, Jeff asked him, “What method framework did your team use to develop the MATE tool?” “Nothing, of course, or the company would be dead,” Ken replied with a smile. Although it was only a joke, he was aware of the seriousness of the problem. He knows that if this problem is not addressed, it will hold the industry back. He started talking to developers around the world and started working on a framework for a new approach.
(Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber)
In 1993, Ken Schwaber, 48, learned from an expert in chemical process control at DuPont, an exchange that helped his research. He realized that there are two kinds of projects: deterministic projects, where everything is already set and the production process can be automated; Experimental projects, full of uncertainty, even a small change will affect the whole body, so you have to use a variety of instruments to constantly monitor and make adjustments.
Later, Ken had the opportunity to work with Jeff on a project at IBM, where their views and views on software development coincided. After this collaboration, the two men combined their ideas and did more detailed research, eventually standardizing the Scrum framework and publishing the Scrum Software Development Process.
In 1995, at the age of 50, Ken and Jeff attended the OOPSLA Conference in Austin, Texas, USA, where they introduced the Scrum framework in its entirety for the first time. He was greatly encouraged by the amount of attention Scrum received after it became public.
How can Scrum be better implemented? This is what Ken will be working on for the next few years as he explores Scrum more deeply in the hope that Scrum can help more teams solve practical problems.
(Scrum Flow chart)
At the same time, one person was paying attention to this problem, and that was Mike Beedle. Mike is an experienced software development practitioner and has done some research on Enterprise Scrum. Ken and Mike met by chance, but that didn’t stop them from sharing ideas for improving software development. In 2001, the two of them wrote their first book on Scrum, called Scrum Agile Software Development. In February of that year, Ken and 16 other agile experts drafted the Agile Manifesto in Utah. In this way, Ken became one of the 17 software development representatives who created the Agile Software development Manifesto.
The halo and recognition were only temporary, and Ken knew that from the moment he chose software development, he would not stop exploring and moving forward. This determination was a beacon that guided him along the way. To better implement Scrum, in 2002 he formed the Scrum Alliance with Mike Cohn and Esther Derby, To provide the governing body for the Scrum methodology and formal certification through the Certified Scrum Master (CSM) program, he was the first president of the consortium in his own right, at the age of 57.
At 57, retirement might be on most people’s minds, but for Ken Schwaber, it’s a new start. During his time as chairman of the Consortium, Ken continued to work on The development of Scrum, which led to the release of the Scrum Master Certification system and its derivative products in the following years. This was for seven years, and his goal was clear: to strengthen Scrum and improve his profession. But in the fall of 2009, Ken had a serious disagreement with the board over the evaluation, certification, and developer program, and the board members asked him to resign. Soon after, the new chairman of the board sent an E-mail announcing that Ken was being fired. He was incredibly sad and disappointed.
As long as a person identified his life direction, step by step to go down, will realize the value of his life. After leaving the Scrum Alliance, Ken, 64, picked himself up and founded Scrum.org. The site provides Scrum resources, training, evaluation, and certification to “Scrum Masters,” “Scrum developers,” “Scrum product Owners,” and organizations that use Scrum for software development enthusiasts around the world.
(Scrum.org)
Scrum.org was another of Ken’s aspirations, and his previous experience strengthened his confidence and belief. He has a personal blog, which he says can be edgy because it is full of unproven and sometimes unfounded opinions. But it can be very enlightening for some people, if you put your heart into it. That same year, Ken and Jeff released the Scrum Guide. Over the next few years they worked together to update it, building a globally recognized body of Scrum knowledge.
Jeff has been a close friend to him and a partner in the Agile process, discussing how to make Scrum better and writing a book together. In 2015, Thirty Days of Software Development was published. This book, which combines Ken and Jeff’s insights into Scrum research, focuses on the Scrum agile software development methodology and how to effectively develop new software in 30 days, when Ken is nearly 70.
Age doesn’t hold you back. Ken didn’t give up on his career just because he was in his 70s. Instead of just researching and maintaining Scrum guidelines, he began to focus on Scrum advocacy and training. While speaking around the world to promote Scrum, he continues to improve Scrum.org, which has helped and trained over 47,000 certified Scrum masters to date.
While many people think Scrum is only for small teams and small projects, Ken came up with another solution: he created a scaled-up Scrum framework called Nexus, and he wanted Scrum to help more teams.
On November 18, 2020, Ken and Jeff, both 75 years old, celebrated Scrum’s 25th anniversary by launching the latest Edition of the Scrum Guide via a live webcast, watched by more than 7,000 people around the world. As of today, Scrum Guide is available in over 20 languages and counting. As Ken himself said, Scrum is not difficult to implement because of national borders and cultural barriers. He’s always optimizing Scrum whenever he can.
(Scrum Guide 2017)
A person not only work, of course, also cannot leave life. Ken’s family members support his cause and are proud of his dedication to Agile. Ken often shares some of Scrum’s research findings with his two daughters, Carey and Valerie. Carey also edited his book Agile Project Management with Scrum.
As a father, he is deeply aware of his responsibilities and obligations, and he hopes his children can learn from him the courage and perseverance to not give up in the face of setbacks. As the father of Scrum, he knows what Scrum can do for people, so he’s committed to improving Scrum and helping organizations around the world practice It, and he hopes Scrum.org will improve the software industry as a whole. The focus, courage, openness, commitment and respect we see in him, as advocated by Scrum values, do not diminish as he ages. We believe that even if the road is full of thorns, he will continue to march forward. Because, he is always on the road!