Maslow’s Hammer is Striking on Scrum

The law of the instrument, more commonly known as Maslow’s Hammer is in full effect in the world of Scrum. The English expression “a Birmingham screwdriver”, meaning a hammer, refers to the practice of using the one tool for all purposes, and predates both Kaplan and Maslow by at least a century.

In 1868, a London periodical, “Once a Week”, contained this observation: “Give a boy a hammer and chisel; show him how to use them; at once he begins to hack the doorposts, to take off the corners of shutter and window frames, until you teach him a better use for them, and how to keep his activity within bounds.”

The first recorded statement of the concept was Abraham Maslow’s (yes, the guy from the pyramid!), in 1964: “I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows:

“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” — Abraham Maslow, 1966

Scrum Fanaticism

Scrum is the gospel and the Scrum Guide is the bible. Scrum Masters all over the world look at organizations and their problems and draw one conclusion: “Scrum can fix this”. They often start by implementing Scrum bottom-up through the organization, starting with the development teams, the events, the artefacts and the roles.

This ‘works’ for a while, or at least it doesn’t make things worse. It can even have some very promising results with high quality, already self-organizing…