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SCRUM for Non Profits, churches and other social organizations

By / Filed under Scrum / March 31st, 2010


Explore the potential of Scrum beyond the realm of software development- Sep 24th – 25th in Phoenix , AZ, click here for more details

One of the things I am really passionate about is Scrum / Agile outside of Information Technology and Software. There is lot of potential for a simple, lightweight framework that will help creativity and  productivity be used in areas outside of IT like Non Profits , Churches etc to breakdown big goals into small tasks, organize resources and execute successful project with more efficiency and align your goals with your purpose and vision.

Here are some success stories and resources that I collected as part of doing more research.

Presented at Agile 2009 by Arline & Jeff Sutherland  -Agile Alliance Presentation & Summary of the Presentation

Welfare CMS Concept by Tobias Mayer  - Welfare CSM

Welfare CSM Video by Tobias Mayer  – InfoQ Video on Welfare CSM

Welfare CSM  Non Profit Scrum Masters by Lyssa Adkins – Notes from Scrum Training and Consulting at a Non Profit

Online User Groups

Linked In Group formed out of Open Session from Scrum Gathering ::  Scrum for Non-Profits in Linked In

Google Group for real world scrum activity by Tobias Mayer  Scrum Collective

I will keep this space updated with more information I collect . If this is something you are passionate about ,contribute any  information you have and participate in the groups and let’s take some action.

In the last week there are different ideas that have come up from various discussions.

1. Create a Website   – People to donate training material , non profits to come and seek for help, keep people connected etc- Domain Name registered.

2. Arrange a training for people who are interested in training non profits.

3.Create a video that can be used to get an initial understanding on how Agile would help non profits, churches and other social organization

Would love to hear thoughts on

  • Other success stories
  • Specifics on how you think Agile / Scrum on areas that need to be modified for using it outside IT.
  • How you think we can spread the message and take more action.
  • How you would like to participate.

Related posts:

  1. Agile for Non-Profits Update
  2. Scrum for Non Profits : OpenAgile
  3. Open Space and Agile::World will not be the same anymore
  4. Using Scrum for Training Scrum
  5. Let’s (re)build Agile Community
  6. More Agile stories ( outside of IT)

3 Responses to SCRUM for Non Profits, churches and other social organizations.

  1. [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Gerry Kirk, Tobias Mayer. Tobias Mayer said: Please suggest resources for "#Scrum for Non Profits" — http://bit.ly/scrum-non-profits. [...]

  2. Hi, I wanted to point to the work I have been doing with a small community of people to create an agile approach for non-software work. We are calling it OpenAgile – it is open-source so that anyone can contribute to its development. There is the main site that has the current release at http://www.openagile.com and there is the wiki where we are gathering stories, ideas, and constructing the terminology, processes, practices, etc.: http://wiki.openagile.org/ Right now there are a number of people using OpenAgile in non-profits including a museum, and several social innovation non-profits. This page is a great source for people adapting Scrum to various contexts. We are trying to learn from all these experiences so that we can create a terminology and process which is a bit more suitable. Many non-profits do not have products, instead they have services. As a result, the idea of a Product Owner and a shippable increment of product functionality don’t quite make sense. Another limitation of Scrum is that it doesn’t have any way to accommodate things that occur in a calendar, nor repetitive activities. These are some of the things we are trying to come to terms with in OpenAgile. I will link to this page from the wiki’s home page.

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