Context
The
disruptive technology is a technological innovation that creates a new market
by disrupting or destroying the existing market and value.
Not all
technologies or innovations are disruptive or revolutionary. Some of the
technologies take time or additional improvements to cause a disruption.
Though
the word disruptive technology is coined and popularized in 1995, the
disruption of continuity was always there. Sometimes it was visible and
sometime it is a surprise
Consider
early days of transportation, the road transport of goods is mainly by animal
driven carts and personal transport is by horses. The invention of internal combustion engines
in 1859 by Ettienne Lenoir and perfection of this by Nikolaus Otto in 1876 were
potential disruptive technological evolution. The transport industry was not
disrupted immediately.
The
subsequent invention of Car by German inventor Karl Benz in 1886 (10 years
later) too did not disrupt the industry. It was in 1908 when Ford Motors
revolutionized the production of cars that transport industry was completely
disrupted. It took 50 years and a series of technologies to disrupt the
industry.
Some of
the recent disruption would be in postal services caused by E-Mail; Computers
in banking sector; photographs to digital photography; Mainframes to mini
computers to personal computers and now to smartphones and tablets the pace at
which disruption is occurring is ever increasing.
It does
not take fifty years to disrupt an industry now. It would be 2-5 years at
maximum. If you put this in generations the lost generation saw one disruption
in their life time whereas Gen Y the Millennial would be seeing at least 10 to
15 disruptions in their life time
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| Generation scale |
Software
industry is no less disruptive. It has several emergent technologies that can
disrupt the current software product. Some of them are Machine learning, Cloud,
SAAS etc that could disrupt the software product that we are managing.
Process
changes are also disruptive. For example scrum process vs water fall method of
software development process.
Managing a disruptive technology
Awareness
is the key to manage disruption. Most of the time, the products disappear
because they are caught off guard when an existing technology manifest itself
as a disruptive technology. Understanding the potential of existing
technologies, tracking its evolution of these technologies are some of things
that can be done proactively
When a
potential disruptive technology is identified, we should either
- Accept
- Defend
- Counter with similar technology
Accept is
simplest of all strategies, in terms of investment. When a potential disruptive
technology is identified ensure that the organization adopts this technology.
This strategy is mostly a low risk proposition.
Defend is
a strategy that is best when the cost of disruption is minimal. Stakes are low.
This will only delay the disruption but not avoid disruption completely.
Counter
is the strategy that can be adopted when you know there is an alternative
technology which is also promising and easy to adopt. Investment is high in
this strategy and risk is also high.
Role of scrum master
It is
essential that everyone plays an active role in managing a disruptive
technology. As a scrum master, the role is to ensure the team members be aware
of emerging technologies and be trained in the technologies.
He should
ensure that requirements that are coming in are also looked at from prism of
emerging technologies.
Incremental Learning
Scrum
teams should not be off guard when organization adopts a strategy to manage a
potential disruptive technology.
The cost
of training ahead is much lower than cost of training or hiring when a strategy
is adopted. There is an impact of cost of lost time and a potential fear of
late start which can jeopardize the organization strategy.
Scrum
master should encourage the team to explore the emerging technologies within a
sprint. He/she should timebox some effort for this training, exploring emergent
technologies, discussing/analyzing them in the context of current requirements.
Scrum
master should allocate 8 hours per scrum member in a 4 weeks sprint. This seems
to be a huge cost but in long run it will be beneficial to organization and
individual members.
Currently
if we consider 1 weeks sprint we have following structure of 1 week sprint.
 |
| Current 1 Week Sprint |
Scrum
master should encourage the team to train 2 hours in emerging technologies in a
1 week sprint.
In
backlog grooming meetings scrum master should encourage the team to look at the
current requirements from the prism of emergent technologies. It is not
necessary that the technology is adopted but discuss the possibility of
different approach.
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| Proposed 1 Week Sprint Overview |
Prism of emergent technologies
When the
team meets for backlog grooming, after securing the backlog, reserve the last 10-15 mins to discuss the backlog from the prism of emergent technologies.
The team
should understand that this discuss has no immediate impact on the backlog that
is groomed but is to encourage evaluation and validation of current requirement
with future emergent technologies.
Team
should try to answer some of the following questions
- Is there a way to achieve similar or higher value using any other approach or technology?
- How is the current value be improved?
- Is the current requirement valid if an emergent technology disrupts?
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