6The Village Arts Festival

After the success of many small projects, Fawzooz and his team decided to hold a big arts festival for artists from the village and the places around it. He chose Scrum to organise the work and make sure the festival turned out as they hoped.

Where do we start?

“At the festival, everyone was an artist.”

Where did we stumble before?. The young man reminded them what used to happen: they would prepare for months, and then discover that each team had been working on its own.

The goal. So Fawzooz set a clear goal: to shorten the preparation, to have the teams work together, and to keep room for creativity.

Roles and cycles

The roles. Fawzooz made the festival director the Product Owner, took the Scrum Master role himself, and left the design and production of the festival’s works to the creative team.

The festival board. The team designed Scrum boards holding everything the festival needed, from the designs to the posters.

The first cycle. Fawzooz made the first Sprint two weeks long, and held the morning meeting at Uncle Saleh’s shop.

Training

Scrum workshops. Fawzooz organised workshops where the team learned the principles and practices of Scrum.

Training for each role. He also prepared training to suit each role, so everyone understood their tasks and responsibilities.

The Scrum events

Sprint planning. Fawzooz led the planning sessions and insisted on goals the team could actually reach.

The morning meeting. Every morning at the shop there was a short meeting where the team followed up the work and cleared whatever was holding it up on the spot.

The review. At the end of each cycle the team went over what it had done and agreed what to improve in the next one.

The little girl drew a sun, and her sun ended up on the big poster.

Challenges and how they were overcome

Resistance to change. Uncle Saleh had organised the village markets for forty years with a notebook and a pen, and the new way didn’t sit easily with him. So Fawzooz helped him see with his own eyes what the village gained from it.

Protecting creativity. Fawzooz left the artists free hours to work on whatever they loved, so their creative energy stayed alive.

Review and adapt. Every so often Fawzooz looked at how well Scrum was working for them, and adjusted his approach according to the team’s views and the results.

Then the festival day arrived, and the team said: “We prepared in half the time.” At the festival everyone was an artist, and the village saw how Scrum can help a creative team do good work in less time.