Simple Scrum is Hard

Keeping things simple is notoriously hard. Legendary football player Johan Cruyff said it in the ‘80s:

Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is. — Johan Cruyff.

He’s right, of course. There are dozens of parallels between sports teams and scrum teams to make. From a team-building perspective, a competition perspective, and even a psychological perspective; performing to achieve goals isn’t very different whether you’re playing a sport or creating a product as a team. The ultimate price is the feeling a win brings.

I love playing sports competitively, even better when it’s a team sport. In team sports, the gap that can be made up by being a better team shouldn’t be understated. Your team can be objectively worse at the game in the technical sense and the tactical sense, but come out on top because you have the better team. Fighting for each other, helping out wherever you can, going the extra mile for each other can flip games around. It’s why betting agencies exist and why nobody can accurately predict the outcome of a string of high-level sports games.

Pitfalls

The same pitfalls apply too. Toxicity within a team leads to poor results. Tensions rise when results are not achieved. A coach (manager) might get fired. The competition doesn’t wait for you…