The Scrum Universe

 

One of my armchair passions is astronomy and cosmology. Every time I watch a video about the universe, its galaxies, the stars within those galaxies and the planets that invariably evolve around those stars, I am often reminded of the orbits of lessor celestial beings within our project teams.


 
We know that for a planet to harbor life, it needs to exist within the "habitable zone" around it's solar companion. The sun will give just enough heat and light to make life viable, and the planet itself will need the right chemical mix to make life possible.
 
The same can be said for our Scrum teams. The organization is synonymous with the sun. It gives light (focus and promotion) to Scrum initiatives, and also energy (empowerment and resources) to the Scrum Team. This culture of Agility is synonymous with the habitable zone for successful Scrum teams; autonomous self-organizing teams with individuals specializing and generalizing in a technical soup that produces wonderful creations. They have the right ingredients to get the very best out of Scrum and value for our customers.

Our good friend gravity, a "natural phenomenon by which all things with mass are brought toward each other", has a role to play too. We connect the vision of the project and the goal of the release/iteration with our focus on the work to be "Done". We are constantly reminded and drawn to this vision and goals of the project so that we are not in danger of floating away. Further, we are drawn to each other as individuals through interactive communication, collaboration and common purpose.

One of the things that makes Agile and Scrum projects so enjoyable, is the element of uncertainty, or more succinctly, the unknown. There are many unknowns in our universe, such as whether or not life exists outside our own world, how the universe began, and the stuff that makes up 95% of the universe that we cannot see, hear or touch; dark matter and dark energy.

Not knowing these things doesn't stop us from living, nor from searching for the truth. We are unafraid to venture into the unknown, to make mistakes along the way, and even fail from time to time. And the reason is because we enjoy the journey more than the destination.

Likewise, we embrace the journey of Agile projects as opposed to the destination-only focus of many Waterfall projects. But we go further than this. We convert the intangible to the tangible, the unknown to the known, and turn chaos into order.

"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
 

Thank you for your interest in the Scrumptious blog. If you have any ideas for Scrum topics, please message me here. Until next time, remember, projects can be Scrumptious!