The Norway Option

How we managed to get quick and qualitative end-to-end feedback on our huge application.

We started with two teams. We grew to eight teams over the course of a couple of months. And the work to be done was still enormous. We wouldn’t be able to get proper end-to-end feedback on the elaborate app we were trying to build any time soon. But, luckily, we found an alternative — The Norway Option.

When I first came to the two teams as their new Scrum Master, they were simply trying to find their footing. Ramping up the basic necessities was their first priority. And they were doing a great job. Within weeks we had a solid Scrum process in place, we had cross-functional teams of true professionals plowing through the extensive requirements documents, and we were building the first parts of the UI to get an idea of what the whole app would look like. This was again at the worldwide accounting firm, like one of my previous stories about The Big Red Save Button.

I’ve already praised the Subject Matter Expert who was assigned — and actually volunteered — to be the go-to guru for all things related to the actual accounting. She was also very much versed in the use of the current slash old version of the application we were trying to rebuild — in a new and improved kind of way. Since she was not used to working in…