Scrum and Life (Part 3)

One of the challenges that scrum teams often face is co-location versus flexibility of being able to work from anywhere and everywhere. Scrum is most effective with co-located teams and in this era of digital madness, it can be sometimes hard to justify colocation. So let me preface this piece by saying I’m not against flexibility of workspace. But let’s not ignore the benefits of team co-location in favour of benefits of working from home.

The fundamental principle behind co-location is the benefit of in-person communication. Now how many times have you done something really important effectively over digital communication? Have you attended a friend’s wedding or birthday over Skype? I’m guessing probably never. Oh and what happened that time you broke up with your ex over text? I presume you were told how terrible of a person you were and you should have at least had the decency to call them or meet them. How effective would a soccer team be if they practised individually all the time without ever being co-located? Now, there is no doubt that digital communication has increased accessibility but I’m not so sure if it can ever replace the effectiveness of in-person communication.

Again, I’m not trying to say people should be forced to work from one location all the time. I’m just saying that striking a balance is important. I mean we don’t try to do important communications online in our lives outside of work. So then since when did making quality products and working effectively become so unimportant?