It should be called MAUL not SCRUM

I write this on the day before England face South Africa in the Rugby World Cup final. There are two reasons I write this today. The first is to point out the biggest problem I have with the Scrum methodology. I will expose the obvious flaw that has been been prevalent since its conception and has gone unsaid for too long. The second reason is because I am too nervous about the game tomorrow and writing this is a welcome distraction to considering the various implications of a victory and defeat.
I apologise in advance to New Zealand fans as I sit here watching them finish the tournament in style. When you are the best in the world for so long you must allow the rest of us an opportunity to revel in the limelight. If it only lasts one more day as England fans we will always have last weekend. Anyway lets get back to the important task of writing the wrong that has existed in the agile world since 1995.
For those unfamiliar with SCRUM then I’ll borrow the definition from Atlassian’s web site for the headline description. If you want to learning more on scrum then that page is a good overview
Scrum is a framework that helps teams work together. Much like a rugby team (where it gets its name) training for the big game, Scrum encourages teams to learn through experiences, self-organize while working on a problem, and reflect on their wins and losses to continuously improve.
Sounds good eh? I can assure you it is and I have been advocating its use with my teams, customers and in my daily life ever since I first read about it. It is so good that I have been ignoring its biggest mistake for the last 5 years. I have forgiven it in the same way as we forgive all our flawed heroes but in a world where fake news prevails someone has to make a stand.
It should never have been called Scrum. It should have been called Maul.
I will allow you a moment to compose yourself as you come to grips with this. The framework that has underpinned the success of organisations like Amazon and Google and has allowed an army of consultants to flourish as agile coaches is fake news. The worst thing is that Scrum started in the US. If I stereotype excessively that is a population of people who already struggle with watching a sport that is played by any other country. If you factor in that it started in the tech sector then that narrows down even more the chance of someone being interested in sport. Jeff has misled a population that was never going to be capable of exposing the truth. I feel I owe it to them to right the wrongs.

As you will have seen from the Atlassian quote Scrum gets its name from rugby. Now I don’t have room to explain rugby on this article but I refer you to this article from the Irish examiner article in 2015 which tongue-in-cheek description is pretty much spot on. It’s only failing is its final point about New Zealand which was proven wrong last weekend when England beat New Zealand 19–7 in the semi-finals of World Cup. If you’ve never watched a rugby game then click here for the extended highlights as it was a great game.
I first read the story of how the word Scrum was adopted in Jeff Sutherland’s Book Scrum — The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half Time. He talked about a Harvard Business Review paper in 1986 written by two Japanese business professors, Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka entitled “ The New New Product Development Game”.
The Japanese professors compared the teams’ work to that of a rugby team and said the best teams acted as though they were in a scrum: “… the ball gets passed within the team as it moves as a unit up the field.”
Scrum — The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half Time , Jeff Sutherland
From this inspiration Jeff adopted the name Scrum forever more. He declared that “it comes from the game of rugby, and it refers to the way a team works together to move the ball down the field”. Now at the time I looked at this and thought that’s not a scrum!. It was the only thing that bugged me about the book and I even went back to the original paper where in their defence the Japanese professors described what they called the ‘rugby approach” where they articulated valid comparisons of rugby play to the characteristics of this ‘new new’ approach.
“Instead, a holistic or “rugby” approach-where a team tries to go the distance as a unit, passing the ball back and forth-may better serve today’s competitive requirements.”
The New New Product Development Game — HBR Jan 1986 by Hirotaka Takeuchi & Ikujiro Nonaka
They never mentioned Scrum apart from in one sub-heading entitled “Moving the Scrum Downfield”. Basically they were writing their paper and needed something to start a new paragraph on and they had already run with the rugby theme so they went with that. It was a lazy title and we all know that can happen.
Moving the Scrum downfield
So the name Scrum was born but for completely the wrong reason. Don’t blame the Japanese professors this is Jeff’s fault. As an American they have a track record for this in the same way as they keep calling football, soccer and can’t say things like Worcestershire sauce properly.
Despite this glaring error Scrum has prospered but the name has always bugged me and it has taken until this time for me to dedicate the time to right this wrong. At a time when rugby is front and centre and on the eve of the biggest game for English rugby since 2007 (please God not again) I feel I owe it to Scrum, Jeff and the rugby world to put forward a new name.
Before we do let me make the case for why Scrum is wrong.
The purpose of a scrum is to restart play with a contest for possession after a minor infringement or stoppage.
Laws of the Game, Rugby Union
There you have it a scrum is simply a way of restarting play with a contest. It was never intended to be a way of making progress. It is formed from 8 players each side which don’t have to be forwards but are. Forwards for the uneducated are the “fat guys” that were described to Karl from Berlin. It is more refined than that and actually is made up of three fat guys (or gals) at the front called the front row. Two taller (but sometimes fat as well) guys interlock behind them. This is achieved by putting their hand between the front rows legs, grabbing for the top of your shorts invariably grabbing a handful of pubic hair in the process. These clumsy oaths are called the second row. The naming convention continues with the final three at the back of scrum called the back row. Now ideally these three should not be fat but in my experience of club rugby that was certainly not a rule that had to be adhered to. The point of this is that the scrum is no place for the ‘backs’ who are the other 7 players on the pitch and in the team. On the very few occurrences that a back has to join a scrum you end up with things like this.

Scrum’s typically involve two packs of forwards joining together and then falling down as they buckle under the pressure of two groups weighing in at 920 kg each crash into each other. This might happen two or three more times until the ball finally is put in the middle and then comes out. The scrum is actually the most unproductive part of the game. It’s been discussed as an area that rugby can get rid of but forwards typically move into the games governing bodies which is a long term strategy to ensure there will always be a place in rugby for fat people.
“for every 100 scrums in the Championship, which ended last weekend, there were 49 collapses, 33 resets and 39 penalties or free kicks.”
Paul Ackford, The Telegraph, March 2012
I will even drag the Japanese professors into this now and point out that “Moving the scrum downfield” was more than a lazy title it was just wrong. It is very rare that a scrum moves more 2 metres because once it has moved the defensive reaction of the opposition is to just go to the ground or stand up.
So, in summary a scrum in rugby is something that: -
- Simply restarts the game.
- Excludes 46.66% of the team.
- Is infamous for being the biggest reason for stops and starts and spoiling the flow of the game.
- Is ineffective as a way of progressing up a field.
If you wanted evidence of how inappropriate scrum is as a name then check out this video. “One of the best scrums in the history of scrums” (according to Scrumma-mogram) but what we have here are two teams locked together refusing to give an inch to the point that the pitch is the only thing moving as it gives way under their feet. As a front row player I admire this as a rugby scrum but as as a visual example of an agile framework that is dynamic, evolving and productive. I don’t think so. As an aside that video started with a scrum featuring the Waikato Chiefs. The Waikato Chiefs are from New Zealand who also happen to be the side that England beat 19–7 in the semi-finals of this year’s world cup on the 26th October.
Is this really how Jeff wanted to portray his baby? Well luckily it would appear that very few people are bothered by this obvious issue. It surely cannot be the case that I am a pedantic sod who just can’t let this go. I can only assume that the wider rugby community has not yet embraced Scrum. As a sport that only became professional in the 90’s we have a track record of slow adoption. This name thing though is going to be a problem and far better that Jeff sorts this out now. Therefore I have proposed that he renames Scrum as Maul.
Let me tell you why Maul is the right name
First let’s familiarise ourselves with what a maul actually is from the Laws of Rugby.
“A maul needs a ball carrier and at least one player from each side.” Now I know on the face of it that sounds like its less inclusive than the 8 players in a scrum but the key words here are ‘at least’. As Wales demonstrate below this allows a maul to involve the whole team if necessary and not just the fat ones. Clearly maul exhibits the team characteristics better than scrum. In the aim of imparting rugby knowledge, I might also point out that the team in black in that game were New Zealand and that’s the same team that England beat 19–7 in the semi-finals of this years world cup on the 26 thOctober.
“The ball carrier may go to the ground but all other players in a maul must endeavour to stay on their feet. All players in a maul must be caught in or bound to it and not just alongside it”. Have you ever read a couple of sentences that capture the spirit of Scrum (soon to be known as Maul) better? The team must endeavour to stay on their feet progressing forwards. It’s also no good to just hang around on the sidelines you need to be bound to it. You need to be committed to the maul just like the pig would be.
Unlike the scrum the maul is very effective at making progress down a field. Yes the opposition can try and drag it down or block it but you also have the ability to move your maul and work around those obstructions. The maul can slow (it can even pause for 5 secs), change direction and accelerate but if it keeps moving forward the maul continues until the team releases the ball or the ball in over the line. Now that is more like it and for a visual image look below as South Africa show the huge progress a skilled maul team can.
Hopefully the more observant amongst you will have notice that the YouTube gods shined on me by providing Japan as the opposition in that game. I like to think that those Japanese professors were watching that game and kicking themselves for such an obvious mistake.
I would hope that this is enough to convince you but if you did need further persuasion here is my killer blow. The critical role in scrum is the person who ensures the process itself is effective and they are called a Scrum Master. Under my new name they immediately are upgraded to the far cooler title of Maul Master. An interesting piece of trivia to finish on is that the name Scrum Master was created after Jeff and his teams watched the All Blacks perform the Haka dance repeatedly. For those of you who don’t know what the Haka is then please see the video below which is an excellent example performed on the 26th October when England beat New Zealand 19–7
Originally published at https://thirdwayconsulting.co.uk on November 1, 2019.
