Scaling Done Right Quotes

“Alignment is a force multiplier.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“But for those that have not already attained mastery, structure and doctrine are needed because formlessness is useless to the beginner.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“While it is not unheard of, most sane people would be embarrassed to take an introductory martial arts class and then develop their own “martial art” from it and teach it to unsuspecting students, exposing them to the danger of miscalculating their effectiveness at defending themselves in a critical situation. Yet agile practitioners do this every day ― some do not even feel any sense of shame for calling themselves “agile coaches” after a year of practical experience.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“the psychological structures and incentive systems that we are trying to help the client change affect us as well.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“There are unfortunately too many coaches who once they have secured a high-paying year-long contract will not use that time to help the organization along, but suddenly develop a lot of understanding for the PMO, partially to have a more comfortable life (sometimes under the disguise of not being a Scrum Nazi)”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“humans are as much controlled by their emotions (system 1 thinking) as their logic (system 2 thinking) and the threat to their status and position will make fierce resistance often inevitable.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“there is a lot of tension between top management and the middle layer in any organization.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“Therefore, when talking to top managers, addressing the ability to deliver reliably so they can keep their promises is paramount.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“It is not the physical distance that matters that much, it is the lack of Einheit.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“Complexity is death.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“Just because architecture is supposed to be stable, it does not mean that it should never change.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“If releasing is hard, people will always find a reason not to release.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“When you decide to take a step to the right, you expect all parts of your body to work in unity to take that step. Actually, you do not even expect it; it is just as natural a feature of
our existence as drawing breath. You would be dumbfounded if not outright terrorized if your left leg suddenly moved in the opposite direction.

While this is an everyday occurrence in the corporate world, with organizations aimlessly ambling about like zombies, the problem of moving in unity becomes even more urgent if we truly aim to achieve business agility. It is only when we can harmonize the decentralized decision making in the teams with the intent of senior leadership that we can achieve real business agility.

Imagine your organization moved like your body: If there is an unexpected noise in your environment, your whole body turns in that direction to assess the situation and address possible threats that might come towards you. How great would it be if your organization did the same?

Flexibly reacting to changes in the environment without friction, discussion,
or delay, just a seamless and natural response — would that not be true agility?”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“No Rick, your Gantt chart is not working, and it never has!”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“Pioneers take all the arrows.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“Waste is more than a crime; it's a mistake.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“There seems almost a shared society-wide delusion at play where we all accept that wasted effort is just a fact of life.

And that is fine.

Or rather, it would be fine if we had already conquered hunger in the world.

Or if half of the world’s children would not live in poverty.

Or had we become a multi-planetary species, protecting us from a planetary catastrophe.

But we have not.

Quite the opposite, our species is actually threatened from several quarters, yet we insist on having some of our best people waste their lives LARPing instead of contributing.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“Deploy or die.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant

“If you can't scale, you can't scrum.”
― Gereon Hermkes, Scaling Done Right: How to Achieve Business Agility with Scrum@Scale and Make the Competition Irrelevant