Scrum at John Deere: Continuing The Evolution Of A Smart Industrial

by JJ Sutherland | October 17, 2019 | Blog

Something remarkable is taking place at John Deere. When they decide to do something, they go big. The leadership of the IT group has decided that they need to do twice the work in half the time, and they need to do it now. They have built brand new cross-functional teams. They gave each team a dedicated Scrum Master and Product Owner.

Last week, John Deere kicked off the first wave in building a self-sufficient Scrum organization, able to coach, train, and guide a truly Agile workplace. I spent a day there talking to people from all levels of the company. Leaders, coaches, developers. It was just amazing.

The John Deere culture is really one of collaboration and community. As I talked with people they were quite honest about the challenges and opportunities they are facing. But without fail they praised John Deere, they don’t want to work anywhere else. Because John Deere is committed to fixing the problems, to continuously improve, to get better. The universal passion for and loyalty to John Deere is something I don’t see in many companies and it extends well beyond IT.

When Scrum Inc. begins a transformation our goal is to leave, as soon as we can. What we leave behind is a company that is actually transformed. We want to truly embed an Agile mindset and the tools to execute Agile practices. We don’t want our customers to need us after we are done. That is how we define success. John Deere is embarking on an Agile journey. And judging by what they are doing this week to kick it off, they are deadly serious about doing twice the work in half the time. Because that’s the point, really. No one should do Scrum to do Scrum. Value delivery is what you want--and you want it faster and better. This is what Scrum is designed to do. And John Deere gets that.