I was out for a walk the other day with some friends and their family. About halfway through the walk one of the boys declared that he was thirsty. No problem says Dad, here is $2, there are some shops, go buy yourself a bottle of water. The boy runs off. I think no more of it.
A few minutes later, the boy comes running back to his father, not with a bottle of water, but rather with the same $2 coin. He gives the coin back to his father and simply said “Mum says no”.
Curious I think. Why would a mother deny their child a drink of water?
Later, I discover why.
“I denied him the water, so that he’d learn to plan better next time, so that he’d learn to learn from his mistakes (however small they may be), and to eventually come to the understanding that almost all his decisions have consequences of some kind.”
At the time I thought “Wow, that’s a really great mother”
And this morning I thought “Wow, that’s a woman who really understands Scrum”[1]
These rules are here to help
I think something that has perhaps been a bit forgotten is that the Scrum rules, much like our mothers, are here to help. We may not always want to do what they’re suggesting, but oftentimes it’s exactly when we want to the least that we need to the most.
The most obvious parallel to my water bottle story is one of the most hated[2] rules in Scrum – being:
The Product Owner may not change their mind during the Sprint
This is often quoted as the reason that Scrum is “not Agile”[3] but there are several good reasons for it.
The one I want to highlight today is simply “So that our Product Owners can learn to plan better”
Imagine speaking to the ScrumMaster after they had denied the Product Owner a mid Sprint change if they explained:
“I denied him the change, so that he’d learn to plan better next time, so that he’d learn to learns from his mistakes, however small, and come to an understanding that all his backlog prioritisation decisions have real world consequences of some kind”[4]
Doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?
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Not the letter, but the principles. It’s quite possible that she’s never heard of or has any interest at all in Scrum. And I’m certainly not suggesting that she’s using Scrum to raise her children. ↩
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And by association, one of the least followed. ↩
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Often by people who define Agile as flailing around building random things based on whim. ↩
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I can imagine that I’ve actually outraged some readers at this point by suggeting to them that their Product Owners don’t consider the consequences of their actions before acting. Well, I have two responses to that:
1. I’m pretty sure not all of them do, so count yourself lucky if this is not the case for you
2. Even some of the best PO’s may be new to the concept that their Backlog prioritisation decisions have immediate effects on both the finances and morale of the organisation. This seemingly annoying minor Scrum rule is designed to help them remember that. ↩