The Game of Scrum
It’s not that difficult, honest
Scrum Theology
A couple of years ago I had a running joke with a colleague about ‘Scrum Theology’¹, that is, the thriving industry built around interpreting and reinterpreting the Scrum Guide.
The Scrum Guide is fourteen pages long, four of these are introductory and one of them is acknowledgements, which means the actual guide is only nine pages long. It remains a bit of a mystery to me that something so slender and straightforward has lent itself to such endless exegesis², but it does suggest that there is something that a lot of people just don’t get from reading the guide itself. So, allow me to propose a novel approach to understanding scrum that may mean we can all stop theologising.³
Game Theory
Football is really just a set of rules. It prescribes two roles for players (goalkeepers and outfield players), a number of necessary events (kick off, half time, full time), necessary objects (pitch, ball, goal, corner flags) and sets bounds for the acceptable behaviour of participants. One person is responsible for ensuring the roles are fulfilled, the events take place, the objects are correct, and that the participants behave acceptably, the referee.
Scrum can be thought of in exactly the same way.
Scrum is really just a set of rules. It prescribes two roles for players (PO and development team), a number of necessary events (daily scrum, review, retrospective), necessary objects (product backlog, sprint backlog, increment) and sets bounds for the acceptable behaviour of participants. One person is responsible for ensuring the roles are fulfilled, the events take place, the objects are correct, and that the participants behave acceptably, the Scrum Master.
The only difference is that football is competitive and scrum is cooperative.
Really?
Yes, really.
The Product Owner and the development team are players in a cooperative game that have a common objective; deliver good software.
To do this they are expected to attend certain key events, the daily scrum, the retro and the review, and to use certain pre-determined objects, the product backlog, the sprint backlog and the increment.
The Scrum Master is not responsible for delivering software, they are responsible for ensuring that the players adhere to the rules of the game. That the Product Owner provides a prioritised backlog, that the development team work on the highest priority items, and that everyone engages constructively with the process.
The limitations of Scrum
The implication of the Scrum Guide is that if you follow the rules as set out you’ll start delivering tip top software in no time at all, or at the very least lots of readers infer this. The problem is, that’s a bit like thinking that if me and the guys I play 5-a-side with found ourselves on the same pitch as Man United, with the same kit, playing by the same rules, it’d be an even game. But it wouldn’t be, because clearly they’re way better at football than us⁴. Simply put, knowing the rules isn’t the same thing as being good at the game.
The Scrum Guide does say things like the Product Owner is responsible for ‘clearly communicating’ products goals, and that the development team is responsible for ‘holding each other to account as professionals’, but it doesn’t say anything about how these things can be achieved. It’s a bit like telling me and my buddies that we can beat Man Untied by scoring more goals than them, factually correct, but not massively helpful.
Full time/Retrospective
None of this is to say that Scrum has no value, it does. The point is that handing out job titles and setting up meetings won’t get you very far if you’re not good at the stuff that isn’t in the rules, clear communication, teamwork and a host of other intangibles.
¹ Yep, we were a fun bunch
² You could make a similar argument about the Communist Manifesto, the Gettysburg Address or the Sermon on the Mount, though it’s possible that these have slightly more world historical significance than a set of rules for delivering software.
³ Yes, I am aware of the irony
⁴ Yes, even the current Man United team
