Every one of us has been an email chain which is borderline unintelligible for the amount of corporate lingo thrown in there. At City A.M., we’re taking a stand and calling out the worst jargon which travels around the City faster than you can drink an overpriced pint. This week: scrum.
Offender: Scrum
What does it mean?
You may have thought that a scrum was something akin to a “huddle”, but you’d be sorely mistaken. For a scrum is not a casual Slack video call or an innocent gathering of penguins. No, a scrum is something more akin to a belief system.
It starts, innocently enough, with the desire to better your project management (and indeed, is rooted in this). Nothing wrong with that, you might think. But that’s not where it will end. Suddenly you’re led down a rabbit hole coming across posts like “looking to connect with Scrum Masters for insurance projects”.
So – you’ve landed in the scrum community.You learn the scrum mythology (it stands for Systematic Customer Resolution Unravelling Meeting, you say coolly, whenever anyone dares question it). You’ve got posters in your bedroom of a scrum workflow including all the roles, artefacts and ceremonies.
Every day you find yourself obsessively performing Scrum ceremonies such as ‘Sprint Planning’, ‘Daily Scrum’ and ‘Sprint Review’. You’ve subscribed to Scrum Master on Youtube. You’ve graduated from Scrum courses ‘Certified Scrum Training’ which – believe it or not – does not involve any actual ball training.
You pick a favourite certifying body (Scrum Alliance or Scrum.org). You talk about yourself as if you’re able to see the big picture, whilst other people are almost blind in their ignorance. You demand the best seat at the table, kicking your baby out of their high chair, every goddamn night.
Yes – whisper it in case They hear you – it seems that a scrum has become more than just a word. It is, let’s not mince words, a cult. And what does it all mean? Well, your guess is as good as ours. A scrum master appears to be an elevated employee in the insurance sector. A scrum tool appears to be a form of product development – but in all honesty even after an afternoon spent (wasted) watching videos explaining the concept, we’re none the wiser.
Who uses it?
People who can’t accept that their job is in the – ahem – insurance sector, not as a hunky member of a 15-a-side contact sport famed for athletes’ buffness.
People who think making charts about project management is valuable work (more often than not, it ain’t).
Recruiters on Linkedin – one ad seeks a Scrum Master with “deep knowledge of Scrum and Agile methodologies, including experience with Scrum tools and techniques” – n.b. “Insurance domain essential” (read: athletes, please do not apply).
Could be confused with…
A pack of angry rugby lads mauling each other to the ground
Literal scum
Almost any concept in the human language apart from an unimaginably complicated system which creates heaps more work than it saves (which is what it actually is)
Should we be worried?
Undoubtedly. Once used by software development teams, cult leaders have managed to convince other sectors that “scrum’s” principles and lessons can be applied to all kinds of teamwork. Nowhere is safe.
HR, and anyone with an ounce of moral fibre, should be particularly worried. Screaming, biting, tackling and yapping should never feature on the product team at Your Favourite Company. White collar work has very, very little to do with a rugby match (unless you’d like to be arrested).
How do we get rid of it?
Luckily, we’ve been in contact with Rugby England and they want their word back! And they’re prepared to fight for it! In a battle between real athletes, and pasty-faced insurance bros we’re feeling positive about how things will turn out. In the meantime, if you see a scrum, hear a scrum, smell a scrum, or touch a scrum accidentally, call the Anti-Scrum Cult Hotline to report it.