Scrum + Hip Hop: Vol. 6
Don’t Let Heroes Hold It Down
Back in the day, Leaders of the New School (L.O.N.S. for the cool kids) was one of my favorite Hip Hop crews. Made up of members Charlie Brown, Dinco D, Cut Monitor Milo, and Busta Rhymes, each brought something unique to the plate. After A Tribe Called Quest invited them to appear on the track, “Scenario,” people took notice. Especially with the lyric:
“Rawr! Rawr! Like a dungeon dragon.” — Busta Rhymes
After that, L.O.N.S. blew up; specifically Busta Rhymes. Music producers, and other artists scrambled to get his unique voice, and cadence laid down on tracks for their albums. He saw it as a way to promote, and build notoriety for L.O.N.S., but founder Charlie Brown saw the attention that Busta received as him going for self. The tension grew into conflict between the two, and the band ultimately dissolved. In the end, Busta Rhymes went on to have a successful solo career, while the others faded into obscurity.
On any team, it’s perfectly fine to have conflict. Conflict is a necessary part of building healthy, well-rounded teams. You want people to poke holes in your ideas, so you can identify the flaws, and plug them up. Scientists do the exact same thing. Conflict tends to gets in the way when it’s not constructive, and negatively affects the team.
Like Busta Rhymes, developers should always be about the team. Often times, when we talk about the word “developer,” we think of coders. But in Scrum, a developer is everyone needed to take a user story from “In Progress” to “Done.” It includes coders, UX, designers, and testers. Scrum is all about team, meaning there are no super heroes.
Subscribing to the idea of rock star developers, or super heroes perpetuates the idea of subject matter experts, or SME (pronounced “smee,” which drives me insane like, when people say “jif” for GIF — but that’s a whole other story). In Scrum, SME is a dirty word. Everyone should contribute equally.
To drive the point home, I work with three different Scrum teams, and two rock star coders devised a script to automate updates. They became SMEs for the script, and said to come to them if anyone needed to use it. One of them recently went on maternity leave. So, what happens if/when the other rock star goes on vacation, or is out sick?
If everyone on the team doesn’t have the ability to complete a user story, maybe it’s not the right mix of people. Isn’t that the whole idea behind cross-functional teams? Bringing it back to reality, I know that everyone can’t be an expert in all things. QA analysts probably won’t be writing decent Java code, and coders won’t be thorough in their testing efforts. But in Scrum, it’s all about having each other’s backs. Having a view in each other’s worlds breeds understanding, and collaboration. And isn’t that the point?
The Next Track: Don’t Forget the Soundcheck
