Scrummage

Last week while traveling on National Obama Day (i.e. Changefest 2009), I listened to a podcast that i was sure was going to have me sawing logs so loud that the resulting chorus of flight attendant call buttons would have me dreaming of a Vegas casino.  No dice, though… 

I’ve always operated as an agile developer.  In fact, I recall the first time I read the Agile Manifesto, I thought “Hey – I am following an SDLC!  I just didn’t know it!”  But Scrum was different – it sounded more like typical project management, although I’ll admit that i never read much past the “Daily Stand-ups” part.

The guys at The Thirsty Developer were talking to Sean McCormack about his vast experience with the Scrum methodology, and my interest was peaked.  I’m not sure it’s a methodology – more like a method.  Anyway, the thing that had me most interested was the idea of a Sprint. 

We had implemented a lot of structure around the accountability of individual team members at the company where Meat and I work.  We have all of our software development tasks placed very deliberately in order on each person’s list, complete with estimates, delivery dates, etc.  Each team member was in a constant state of “jogging”.  Rarely were they even jogging together.  It’s hard to get people to work harder when there is no end in sight, and nobody to help carry the load.

So when I get back in to the office on Monday, I asked Meat and the other Leads to explore the possible implementation of a test Scrum sprint, and by Wednesday we kicked it off!  I’ll be posting later about the progress and details of our experience.

Btw, i like saying the word Scrum – especially as a verb i.e. “Let’s scrum it!”  Meat seems to be fond of identifying Chickens.