The Game of Scrum

What a backyard full of 6-year-olds can teach us about agile development

A couple weeks ago, we had some friends over for dinner who have kids around my daughter’s age. While we sipped adult beverages and prepared dinner, the little ones went out to play in the yard.

While they were out there, they invented a game. I can’t say I understood it — I was an observer from the deck, not a player. It was cooperative, and it involved scoring points by moving a large inflatable beachball from one side of the yard to the other. The exact location of the scoring zone was declared newly with each point: “Now we have to get it over… THERE!”

There were spots on the yard where they avoided stepping. Sometimes they’d be unable to run any further, for reasons I never quite understood, and would throw or kick the ball to another player to continue its advancement toward the scoring area. Imagine a chaotic, cooperative version of rugby or American football, played on a lava field with moving end zones, using a beachball, by kids aged 6 to 8. As you might imagine, there was a great deal of shrieking involved.

What was notable was how seriously they played. It was all really good fun, but they played the game intensely. The challenges they’d built into the game were serious, and this business of scoring…