“The New New Product Development Game”, a study by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka published in Harvard Business Review in 1986 mentioned that companies developing new product were using the holistic method – “as in rugby, the ball gets passed within the team as it moves as a unit up the field.”
This holistic approach as mentioned in the study has six characteristics:
- Built-in Stability
- Self Organizing Project Teams
- Overlapping Development Phases
- Multi-learning
- Subtle Control
- Organizational Transfer Of Learning
SCRUM derives directly from this study and basis itself on the mentioned six characteristics.
Takeuchi and Nonaka are the godfathers of Scrum and gave it the name. Their latest Hitosubashi book clarifies and extends their work in the original Harvard Business Review paper and it useful for those trying to achieve a hyperproductive state. There is a lot of lean in there.
As mentioned by Jeff Sutherland
The first Scrum was influenced by concepts from Goldratt’s constraint theory and focus on Muri, Mura, and Muda. Elimination of disruptions in flow was initiated after the first few Sprints to eliminate reset times between Sprints, now accepted as a best practice in Scrum. Mura or avoidance of stress on a person, system, or process yielded hyper-productive states combined with zero attrition in several of the Scrum companies where I led engineering. This is now known as the sustainable pace of Agile development. Finally, Muda or radical reduction in waste has always been a primary driver in all the companies where I implemented Scrum. You cannot achieve a hyperproductive state without it.
Reference:
https://www.scruminc.com/origins-of-scrum/
https://hbr.org/1986/01/the-new-new-product-development-game