The Scrum Semantic Wars
Word games and semantics are fun but we should be very aware of the impact this has on Agile as a whole
Discussions about the words used in the Scrum Guide are endless. A few days ago it was “sprint”. Too hasty. To some, it brought images of a 100-meter dash and exhausting all-out running. Another favourite one is “servant leader”, where people often conclude that it encourages Scrum Masters to be seen as no more than a kind of butler to the team.
Being a biologist and having studied animal behaviour, my favourite is of course the word “grooming”. In the Agile world, we have had to abandon the use of this word: google some to find out why. But after years I still miss the word. Have you ever seen monkeys grooming? It is such a relaxed and peaceful group activity. That’s what I always associated the word with, I found it to be a really positive way of expressing the ideal way of working with the backlog. Preferably in a sunny park, relaxed and soothing, and not only promoting hygiene (backlog hygiene, could that be a thing?) but also improved social contact in the team. And the mindfulness of it! A perfect counterbalance against the hastiness of sprinting.
I also think it is totally unfair we can’t use it anymore, because in the world of animal behaviour it is still a respectable word. Of course, getting rid of the word in that field would have involved dumping about 50 years of scientific literature, which I’m sure is not going to happen any time soon. So I guess we humans can be practical after all.
Anyway, getting back to the semantics of Scrum, I enjoy semantic discussions as much as the next guy, but for me, it is always a purely academic endeavour, a game of meaning which I carefully keep removed from the practice.
After all, I think that, with the exception of perhaps math, the meaning of words in a language is always relative and imperfect. Meaning takes its shape in the circles we move in on a daily basis.
In the same way, Scrum takes shape in the way we implement it and experience it with our teams.
illustrates this beautifully in his article ”Why we cannot talk about how to do Scrum”.
As a Scrum Master I am always curious what shape Scrum will take in each new team I work with. The surprises are the best part of this. That moment when someone comes up with an interpretation of some aspect of Scrum I could never have thought up myself. Something that suddenly expands the way we can use the framework beyond what I thought was possible.
My point, and the point of this article, is that I feel that we spend too much time and energy sifting through the words in the Scrum Guide and complaining about them. And we take it all much too seriously. Endless semantic discussions and interpretations of the meaning of the Scrum Guide, likescholastic monkssifting through the bible!
By doing this I think we weaken the whole. We open the door to all-out discussions which can only result in one thing: we seed doubt about our approach and that doubt seeps beyond the semantics into the framework itself. We are literally diluting the power of that which we believe in.
This is a pattern that I’ve come across in different areas. Politics is one example, where you often see left parties bickering amongst each other and the conservatives quietly walking away with power. Closer to my work, I’ve often been told that I should spend less effort gathering proof for my ideas (that’s the scientist in me again) but instead I should focus on my eloquence.
For me, that has been a hard lesson to learn, that it is not truth that moves people, but the power of the idea, the way you present it.
In the same way, we might feel that by being so critical about Scrum and Agile we are showing how upright, serious and unbiased we are, but that is not the image we create. Instead, I notice people generally experience this as confusion and unreliableness, like somehow we haven’t thought it through carefully and are still trying to figure it out.
This negative reaction is perhaps easier to understand by reminding ourselves of the huge step it is to embrace Agile. We are asking people to risk their companies and the well-being of their employees!
So, what we should be doing in my opinion, is upholding the good intentions of the framework. We should be doing our best to find the positive side of the discussion and use that to strengthen the framework and its meaning.
I think we should operate under the assumption that the people involved in developing the Scrum Guide have put so much effort into every detail, that we should accept the guide is the best solution until we can definitely prove otherwise. A bit like in the concept of thepresumption of innocence:“The Scrum Guide is innocent until proven guilty”.
The Slow Thinking Manifesto elegantly sums up what I’m trying to say:
To be clear, I am not trying to suggest that we should stop being critical of Scrum. Not at all, empiricism is such an important part of Agile that it should definitely be applied to the Scrum framework too. What I am saying is that, just like in any retrospective, we should weigh the value of an improvement very carefully against the costs and focus on the most important improvements. Those that are most effective at strengthening the framework.
And thereby strengthen our resolve too, our resolve to use the framework for the purpose it was created, becoming Agile. Again, the power of a concept is not found in its definition, or even the reality of it, but in the shape it takes in our minds and the way it moves us.
My favourite example is Guy Fawkes, an insignificant figure of history who you might even call a religious fanatic, and a traitor who suffered the ultimate fate. In our time, thanks to a simple movie, he became a universally recognised rallying cry for anti-globalisation and anti-government!
Another example is the swastika. I ran into it in India in a veritable WTF moment. It led me to the discovery that it has actually been a symbol of good luck and prosperity for the past 2000 years. But good luck starting a business selling jolly bumper stickers with it on them!
There are legion such symbols. Another example, the Virgin Mary, a representation that some think is actually the mother goddess of ages past adapted and passed on from religion to religion through the ages. Simply because that for which it stood was so powerful a concept, that people were ready to rather creatively adapt it to the new reality rather than give it up.
So having said all this, I call on all my fellow Agilists to focus on the positive of our Agile movement! Let us agree to always assume the best intentions and let us present the idealistic alternative of every discussion, the interpretation which we would use in our practical application of the concepts, the one that comes from our Agile heart.
It is better to err towards a positive ideal, and maybe have to confess to overconfidence later, rather than putting our movement at risk!