I remember the first time I heard the term scrum development.  A manager at a previous job told me “We’re doing Scrum now, read this.” Then he handed me bunch of photocopied book pages.

After a comprehensive review of the pages, all I figured out was that Scrum had something to do with fast meetings every morning. And that was my first introduction to Scrum.

At a later job, I found myself in a meeting, brainstorming the best way to make Scrum work internally, and arguing over what Scrum was supposed to look like. Both situations, a minimally explained stack of photocopies, and arguments over the physicality of Scrum, resulted in negativity- people around me decided that “Scrum doesn’t work.”

How Scrum Works

In my situations, trying to make Scrum work took precedence over the team, and whether or not it could really take advantage of Scrum practices. Taking advantage of Scrum practices is what makes a Scrum team succeed. After all, the development term “Scrum” was derived from rugby for a reason.

The name Scrum was chosen to represent specific software development practices because like Scrum team in rugby, one team needs to cover a variety of responsibilities. This team works towards a common goal, continuously, in parallel, and under circumstances that could, and do, change rapidly. In rugby, the Scrum team needs to cover ground together. The clock never stops, teams never switch sides, and the ball can only be thrown backwards or sideways, forcing the team to move together in a line across the field. Similarly to Scrum in development, all team members need to know their teammates status, so they become aware of new gaps in the field position that need to be covered. In this aspect, the team needs to be self-managing, while it pushes the ball forward in sprints. This can’t wait for outside direction.

If your team is new to scrum, or struggling with it, the tendency to blame Scrum practices instead of a team’s unity often highlights deeper problems. If a member of a rugby team isn’t keeping up and leaves a gap in the line, no one would say ‘rugby doesn’t work’. The word ‘team’ gets thrown around business a lot when ‘group’ would be a better description. A team communicates with each other, strategizes, and members know how to truly work together- not just in parallel.

Functioning as a Scrum Team

In the film Invictus, Nelson Mandella tells the captain of the South African national rugby team that he needs them to win the world cup to gain the support of the nation. Players complain that their schedules are already full, and extra work like running rugby clinics for children isn’t worth their time. But after working together on these clinics, the team became much more focused and productive when it came to new responsibilities. As the captain said “We’re more than a rugby team now, we need to get used to it”.

The expectation to function as a team is built into scrum. If a group has seen previous success without having to self manage, or without leaving their keyboards for things like planning meetings, there will naturally be complaints that scrum isn’t working. In some cases teams may need to tweak Scrum in order to fit a specific organization, but before making changes it’s worth looking to see if your team is functioning like a team, or like a group.