Enhancing My Education:

Interviewing the Expert

Laura Salt
CIS 454 Honors Option
Spring 2017
Introduction: About Me wanted to dig deeper into the meaning of
Scrum more than we got into it while in the
I am currently a rising senior
classroom. I wanted to find out what is entails
accounting major with a computer
to be a Scrum Master with a large company
information systems minor. I am planning on
in the U.S. I thought there would be no better
sitting for the Certified Public Accounting
way to learn about this than from a JMU alum
(CPA) Exam during the summer of 2018 after
themselves. They have been through the
I have graduated with my undergraduate
same classes, professors, and experiences I
degree in May 2018. I will be starting my first
have while at JMU. JMU students are one of
class in James Madisons Masters of
a kind and we all leave this school with the
Accounting program this coming fall and I
same attitude and pride.
will be completing my masters by December
2018. Right now, I have an internship with a Introduction: Pam Norkus
public accounting firm in Northern Virginia
The subject of my interview, Pam
for this coming summer and I intend on
Norkus, attended JMU from 2010-2012.
actively seeking full-time employment
While at JMU she was the Association of
during the coming fall semester. People
Information Technology Professionals
always asked me why I chose accounting,
Public Relations Officer. The summer before
and honestly when I came into college I had
she graduated she held an internship in
no idea what it was. Now that I have a better
Richmond, Virginia with Capital One as a
understanding after completing a full year
Systems Specialist Intern. Once she
within the major, I realized I picked the right
graduated with her Bachelor of Business
major for me. A computer information
Administration in Computer Information
systems minor did not occur to me until I took
Systems, she went on to work at Capital One
one of the required courses that must be taken
in McLean, Virginia as an ITDP Associate.
to be accepted into JMUs College of
During this position, she continuously
Business. This entry level computer
supporters Portfolio & Delivery
information systems class gave me insight to
Management. After a year in McLean, she
a whole new way of thinking. It is very
went on to work at Capital One in San
different from the way accountants think and
Francisco, California as a Senior Scrum
I believe it has given me a step-up compared
Master and Product Owner in IT Digital
to the other accounting majors. As I finish out
Delivery. This past year, she was promoted to
my final year at JMU, I have to thank the CIS
Principal Scrum Master and is responsible for
department for their constant positive attitude
day-to-day team operations.
in teaching their courses and their willingness
to help their students succeed. Introduction: Requirements Gathering
Process
Introduction: Why this topic?
Any successful analyst knows they
Now the question is, why scrum?
must act like a detective during the
Why did I want to complete this interview? I
requirements-gathering process. The first
wanted to get a deeper understanding of a
step is to decide what way the information
subject that interested me in my Systems
will be collected. The most efficient way for
Analysis and Design course, CIS 454. I
my research purposes was through an
interview with pre-set thoughtful questions. most valuable features. Feedback is constant
Interviews are the most commonly used and the team organizes itself around the work
requirements-gathering techniques since it is that is needed to be done.
the most natural. If you want to know
Scrum values the 12 principles behind
something, you just ask! I initiated contact
the agile manifesto. In summary, the
with Pam through my CIS 454 Professor, Dr.
principles are to satisfy the customer through
Dillon. Dr. Dillon is connected with almost
early and continuous delivery, welcome
all of his former CIS students on LinkedIn.
changing requirements, deliver working
This is how he knew Pam was a Scrum
software frequently, work together daily,
Master and how he found her contact
motive and trust individuals, face-to-face
information for us to use during this process.
conversation, promote sustainable
He first emailed Pam to make sure she was
development, attention to technical
willing to participate in my honors option
excellence, simplicity, self-organizing teams,
project. Then he connected us over email and
and efficient and regular intervals (Do Better
that is when the discussion officially started.
Scrum Pg. 5). To go further in depth in these
I created a list of questions that I wanted to
principles, scrum always wants to fulfill the
get the answers to by reading the materials
top priority requirements first and each
Dr. Dillon provided for our class and by
output must have working code. Scrum wants
doing some outside research on the internet
to be able to respond to changing and
myself. After I created the list of questions, I
evolving user requirements and harness their
went to Dr. Dillon to go over the questions
competitive advantage because of its fast
and discuss any possible changes that needed
response time. Their goal is to provide
to be made before I sent the email to Pam.
immediate value to the customer as quickly
Once the list was finalized, I emailed Pam
and efficiently as possible while still focusing
and asked for her responses. Pam sent them
on producing high quality products that meet
back to me and I analyzed them to make sure
all the end users specific requirements.
I had no follow-up questions for her. Once
Jacob Ondiek, Project Manager at KRA,
that process was done I could apply what I
discusses pair programming which leads to
learned from Pam to what I learned from Dr.
increased code quality because
Dillon in class.
programming out loud leads to clearer
What is Scrum? articulation of the complexities and hidden
details in coding tasks, reducing the risk of
Scrum is the most commonly used
error or going down blind alleys (12 Agile
and best-known agile frameworks. Scrum is
Manifesto Principles Simply Explained). Pair
derived from the manifesto for agile software
programming is when one programmer is the
development which includes: individuals and
driver and is typing the code on the
interactions over processes and tools,
keyboard, while the other programmer is the
working software over comprehensive
navigator and they are focused on the
documentation, customer collaboration over
overall direction of the programming rather
contract negotiation, and responding to
than typing in the code. When this is
change over following a plan (Do Better
implemented into scrum, there is a better
Scrum Pg. 5). Essentially scrum gives the
transfer of skills and increased resiliency to
team clear goals and regularly delivers the
interruptions. This will produce a higher
quality product but at a much more efficient
speed which are two of the main values of
Scrum.
An interesting feature in scrum is
there is no project manager role. This can be
difficult for employees who are usually take
on this role in their organization. There are
three roles for a scrum team: Product Owner,
Scrum Master, and the team itself. The
product owner gathers the requirements,
manages the release plan, and controls the
profitability of the project (the expected
return on investment). The scrum master is
responsible for empowering the team and
keeping the process moving forward. The
team itself has the role of keeping track of
their own progress and committing to
delivering the software.
Why use Scrum?
There are many reasons why a
company should implement scrum into its
organization. First scrum is easy to learn and
use when your company has the right
resources available to them. It can be easily
introduced into an organization and the three
roles can be easily adopted by current
members of the company. Scrum optimizes
team efficiency and transparency by
requiring daily Scrum Meetings that last 15
minutes and answer the questions what have
I done yesterday what am I going to do
today and which problems do I have or
what is blocking my work (7 Reasons to Use
Scrum). Scrum allows the user to see and use
the product before it is finished and helps the
user and the team identify any problems that
need to be changed before the final product is
released to the market. Scrum effectively
provides a way for people within
organizations to work together effectively
and efficiently compared to the traditional
development methodologies. They rely on
documents and individual work which takes
up a lot of time and effort. Compared to
scrum, which allows everyone to work
together and collaborate to create the best
quality product for the time and effort put into
it.
Interview with Pam Norkus
In this section are the questions I
asked Pam Norkus and her responses. Each
set of questions were grouped into different
sections to allow for a bettering
understanding of her experience.
Personal Experience
Laura Salt [LS]: How long has your longest
sprint lasted? Was there a reason it was
longer than any of your other sprints?
Pam Norkus [PN]: The longest sprint Ive
ever run was 1 month (4 weeks). Our mobile
department released app updates on a
monthly cadence and chose to align our team
sprints to the delivery schedule and match
output.
[LS]: How many different scrum teams have
you managed at one time? If you managed
more than one at a time, how did you manage
your time so that each team was attended to
equally?
[PN]: The most Ive managed is 3 scrum
teams at one time. This was successful
mainly due to all 3 teams supporting the same
product so there were lots of similarities
between the 3. If team 1 was facing an
impediment, it was likely that the other 2
were facing it as well, so tackling that
impediment had triple the value. I maximized
my time by creating templates for updates,
project plans, etc so everything was reusable.
Some weeks I would spend more time with 1
team over the others, and vice versa. It just
depended on the needs of the team for that
given week. I also leaned on my tech leads
and other strong team members to help,
which provided opportunities for them to step
into a leadership role and push themselves
outside their engineering comfort zone.
Managing Your Scrum Team
[LS]: What would you do if a member of your
team is not sufficiently prepared for the daily
scrum meetings during the sprint portion of
the scrum?
[PN]: I think this depends on how you run
daily scrum and the maturity of the team.
With a high performing team, its pretty
obvious that theyre unprepared and I will
make a comment publicly that they need to
be more prepared in the future that way their
team mates can hold them accountable as
well. With a newer team, I will re-iterate
expectations a few times to be sure its not a
process misunderstanding. If it continues to
occur, I will have a private conversation
regarding performance, ensuring to highlight
the impacts that their actions (or lack thereof)
have on the broader success of the team.
[LS]: How do you handle conflict within your
team? Can you describe a difficult situation
when you experienced conflict as a scrum
master?
[PN]: Seek first to understand. Every conflict
is different, but Ive
found that entering
conflict with the Seek first to
priority around understand
understanding the other
individual and why
they are upset makes a huge difference in
resolution. There was a recent example of
when a team member wasnt following our
team defined norm of Core Hours and was
repeatedly late and leaving early even after
reminders. This started to create resentment
and frustration with the rest of the team who
was following the team norm. After sitting
down with him 1:1, with a mindset of seeking
first to understand and not leading with a
condescending tone, I learned that this
member gets pulled away from the office
frequently due to having a young child at
home with several disabilities that require his
assistance. He didnt want to voice this
broadly because of a fear of judgement. This
conversation not only created a mutual trust
between the two of us, but allowed us to come
up with a fair mitigation plan that he did feel
comfortable sharing with the team to ease the
resentment with them.
[LS]: How do you ensure that your scrum
team has access to the stakeholders?
[PN]: Ive always tried to keep my Product
Owner super involved in sprint ceremonies.
Ive found that the more present and involved
the PO is with the daily scrum, grooming,
planning, etc the
more successful
the team is The open-door
because the policy has proven to
product vision is be successful.
clear. As long as,
the Scrum Master
is present to protect the team from unrealistic
deadlines and expectations, the open-door
policy has proven to be successful.
Personal Thoughts
[LS]: What do you enjoy most about being a
Scrum Master?
[PN]: I enjoy the variety of responsibilities
and collaborative nature of working in a team
environment. Being a scrum master has given should be open for how its implemented
me opportunities to work with various (scrum, Kanban, lean). For example, scrum
technologies and products that I wouldnt works especially well in software delivery
otherwise be given an opportunity to work on where the scope is known/semi-known.
if I was in an Individual Contributor role However, Ive seen Kanban work especially
because of the required skill set (i.e. well in production support teams where the
Engineer). work is unknown/completely dependent on
external factors.
[LS]: Why do you believe Scrum is valuable
in an organization? [LS]: What do you think makes a good scrum
master? Name three qualities that you
[PN]: I think Scrum supports a fail fast
possess and name three that you wish or want
mentality which is
to learn how to possess.
so critical in
Scrum supports a
todays society [PN]: Lots of qualities
fail fast
where products make a good scrum Servant
can become mentality master, but I think the leader
obsolete before most important is being a
they even have a servant leader. The three
chance to make it to market due to the qualities that I think I possess are selflessness
industry changing so fast. I also believe the - putting the teams needs and successes
team collaboration required, with each before my own; adaptability and willingness
critical decision making role present to try new things always growing along-
(Product, Engineering, Scrum), makes side the team to support them on their journey
delivery of work extremely more successful in however they need it at the given time; and
in eliminating those external dependencies. communication the ability to clearly
articulate expectations, progress and
[LS]: Explain what you believe agile
everything in-between effectively. The three
means in 1-2 sentences.
qualities that I am currently growing in are
[PN]: I believe technology expertise having enough of a
agile means technical understanding to communicate with
bringing the incorporating your engineers to better influence and
required resources constant feedback. manage the work; the ability to give direct
together that can personal feedback and constantly grow your
define and build a team; and overall leadership having the
product in an iterative and incremental presence and persuasion to inspire and lead a
fashion, incorporating constant feedback. high performing team.

[LS]: Do you think there are certain [LS]: What is a good indicator that the scrum
organizations that would not be able to process is working in your organization?
effectively utilize Scrum? What indicates that your work is successful?

[PN]: I think every organization can [PN]: In a general sense, I think success can
successfully utilize and benefit from the agile be defined in almost any way; it just depends
methodology/manifesto, but I think the door on what your organization deems valuable.
For my organization, specifically, its defined
by the NPS (net promotor score) and other
external ratings scales. As we have become
more matured in our agile practices, moving
faster and efficient in our delivery of
products, its assumed that those external
ratings should reflect positively.
[LS]: What do you think is missing from
Scrum? Would you add any other
requirements or practices to Scrum?
[PN]: I think scrum is missing the flexibility
to support innovation.
Because scrum requires
missing the
the team to commit every
flexibility
sprint to well defined
pieces of work that have
been planned down to the
hour, it leaves very little space and time for
resources to be creative and innovate. I would
like to see more emphasis on the benefits of
ambiguous work in the day-to-day where the
team/individuals have an opportunity to
explore. That time shouldnt be reserved only
for innovation teams and Hackathons for
example.
Conclusion: What did I learn?
After reviewing Pams responses to
my questions, I have learned that being a
scrum master is very subjective. To be an
effective scrum master it constantly involves
molding to the needs and personalities of the
team(s) you are managing. I also learned that
being an effective scrum master is not done
alone. Pam mentioned how she leans on her
tech leads and strong members of the teams
when she has a heavy workload or just needs
an extra push. Throughout my years of
completing group projects I have learned that
none of it can be done alone, at least not
efficiently. People need to know when to give
in and ask for help. Those kinds of people are
usually the most successful and better know
their own strengths and weaknesses and
know how to utilize and benefit from other
strengths to overcome their own weaknesses.
One thing Pam said that really
resonated with me was seek first to
understand. This is so important when
dealing with conflict within your professional
environment but also your personal
environment. You must really step back and
look at the problem from the other persons
perspective before you make any rash
judgements. By doing this you can more
effectively understand the problem and move
on from there. This will allow you to make
better decisions moving forward compared
instead of you just making your own
decisions without consulting the other parties
involved. I found it interesting when Pam
mentioned a fail fast mentality. She
described how todays society products can
become obsolete before they even have a
chance to be sold. Scrum supports this
mentality by allowing the delivery of work to
be more successful but also allowing the
delivery to be quicker and reducing the time
to market. This supports the agile manifesto
principle of delivering working software
frequently.
Finally, I agree with Pams response
that scrum is missing the flexibility. I liked
how she explained the fact that the team has
little time to be creative and innovative
because their time is planned down to the last
hour. This creates a disadvantage for scrum
compared to the other traditional
methodologies that emphasize innovation
and creativity over quick, working products.
Scrum could benefit from allowing the teams
time to explore and create their own products
and implement their own ideas to generate
new designs for their company.
 Works Cited
1. Scrum a Description PDF Scrum Alliance, Inc.
2. Do Better Scrum PDF ScrumSense
3. The 12 Manifesto Principles Simply Explained Jacob Aliet Ondiek
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/12-agile-manifesto-principles-simply-explained-jacob-aliet-ondiek
4. 7 Reasons to Use Scrum in Project Development David Nos
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-reasons-use-scrum-project-development-david-nos