In our Scrum Intro Training [1] the participants confronted me with a problem. In their Delivery Organization money plays a role, not in determining the value of a product, but in maintaining a business. Decisions are made for purely political reasons. The idea of Return-On-Investment, or economic thinking, does not work in that case. This organization is quasi set up like an administrative organization.
Niklas Luhmann [2] emphasized in his works that every system has a means of communication, that this means constitutes the system and that these means of communication react with one another to recreate themselves.
“A social system is achieved, whenever self created communication coherently emerges and isolates itself by limiting the suitable communication from its environment. Social systems do not consist of people, also not from actions, but from communication.” [3]
In business it is money. In the legal system it is laws and in politics it is power. (see table) [4]
| Knowledge | Politics | Law | Business | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Function | expansion of knowldge | collective official decisions | stabilization standard expectations | regulation of shortage (supply and demand) |
| Medium | truth | power | rights | money |
| Code | true/untrue | has power/does not have power | just/unjust | own property /doesn’t own property |
| Program | methods and theories |
rules of politics |
legal order, laws, etc. | economic order |
| Communication | academic statements | political decisions |
statements of justice |
economic transactions |
If this company exists in a system that is active in a political context, then it applies that: it exists to “have power”. Consequently we must during ROI look at to what degree the new story will contribute to “increased power” for customers. Business Value = Increased Power. Money plays no role in this system.
[1] Since June we offer Scrum Intro Training as a one day workshop. It should help, to carry Scrum even to the darkest corners. :)
[2] Niklas Luhmann (born December 8, 1927 in Lüneburg; died November 6 1998 in Oerlinghausen) was a German sociologist, philosopher und social therotician. Quelle Wikipedia
[3] Die Wissenschaft der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main 1992, page 271 (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, 1001)
[4] This chart I took from this article: http://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/Soziologische_Klassiker/_Luhmann,_Niklas