Teaching Systems Thinking as a Foundation of Scrum

Abstract

Scrum is an agile project management methodology, founded on principles of a learning organization. The principles of a learning organization are systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning. However, if organizations follow the Scrum practices without understanding the underlying principles, Scrum does not work as well as intended. Ideally, the foundational principles should be learned together with the Scrum practices, but often teams learn the practices without the principles. We have successfully taught Scrum practices and principles together in a graduate course in software engineering, and found students were able to execute Scrum effectively. We propose how the principles can also be taught in an industrial setting where practitioners know Scrum practices but not the foundation.