Blackblot PMTK and Scrum
Introduction
This review explores the compatibility of the Blackblot Product Manager’s Toolkit® (PMTK), a market-driven product management methodology, with Scrum, a software development method.
Scrum Background
Scrum is a term that originates from Rugby football, a competitive team game and a contact sport that originated in England circa 1845.
The term Scrum was first introduced in the context of product development by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka in their The New New Product Development Game article, published in 1986 in the Harvard Business Review.
In the article, Takeuchi and Nonaka draw inspiration to the rules and plays of Rugby football.
In 1995, Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland published and presented their thoughts on software development in The Scrum Development Process document.
The Agile Manifesto, a proclamation document listing preferred values and principles for custom software development, was published in 2001.
In 2001, Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle published a book titled Agile Software Development with Scrum, marking the beginning of a series of books on Scrum.
In 2009, Schwaber and Sutherland published the first The Scrum Guide, a handbook for implementing Scrum, the earliest in a series of Scrum guides, the last being published in 2020.
Scrum’s Character
Lightweight Software Development was simultaneously introduced in the 1960s with Heavyweight Software Development (waterfall, stage-gate, spiral).
The concept of lightweight software development is based on iterative and incremental development principles and promotes continuous planning, development, and testing work.
Modern perspectives on doing lightweight software development began to re-emerge in the mid to late 1990s with method variations such as Extreme Programming (XP), ICONIX, Crystal Clear, Scrum, Feature-driven Development (FDD), Adaptive Software Development, and Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM).
The core idea of lightweight software development, which is also recognized in Scrum, is to allow the delivery of a product in stages, providing additional validation or fine-tuning of the product’s feature set with each delivery stage.
Incidentally, it is theorized that Schwaber and Sutherland’s version of Scrum is based on American football.
Scrum Pros and Cons
Rapid delivery requires simplification and more peer collaboration. Processes must become more simplified and adaptable.
For many software companies, the search for a rapid delivery technique culminated in Scrum.
Scrum is simple and easy to grasp, an advantage and part of its popularity.
However, Scrum is supposedly intentionally unclear and incomplete, with many essential descriptions, definitions, or explanations missing from the Scrum Guide.
Scrum and Product Management
Scrum lacks methodological guidelines or foundation rules.
In the Scrum Guide, there is no indication of how Scrum should interface with product management.
Consequently, guidance on product management’s interaction with Scrum concepts and Scrum roles must come from sources external to the Scrum Guide.
In this case, it’s the Blackblot PMTK™ Methodology foundation rules.
PMTK and Scrum
The second PMTK foundation rule states that “Product management resides solely in the problem space”.
Lightweight Software Development was rebranded as Agile Software Development in 2001, with the publication of the Agile Manifesto.
Agile software development at its core is an incremental and iterative software development technique that is confined to the solution space.
Scrum is a software development method based on Agile principles and values.
Hence, according to the Blackblot PMTK™ Methodology second foundation rule, product management resides in the problem space and is separated from Scrum, which resides in the solution space.
PMTK and Scrum Implementation Rules
The Blackblot PMTK™ Methodology is compatible with Scrum according to the following implementation rules:
- Scrum entities reside solely in the solution space.
- Scrum’s Product Owner role only manages the Product Backlog.
- Scrum’s Product Backlog only represents a prioritized list of the required software development work.
Summary
The PMTK and Scrum Implementation Rules introduce a proper interface between product management and product development without conflict or overlap.
Blackblot Product Manager’s Toolkit® (PMTK) methodology and Scrum are compatible, according to guidelines based on rationales that conform to the PMTK foundation rules.