• Scrum Master

Scrum explained in Star Wars style

There are many misconceptions about scrum. A major source of misconceptions, unfortunately, is the official Scrum Guide. The Scrum Guide is written as programming code. By describing Scrum correctly as a story – the Star Wars story – I hope to quickly give you a nice picture of how Scrum really works. The Scrum framework contains many difficult new words. Below I explain them all using our heroes: Luke, Lei, Han and Yoda.

The roles in Scrum based on the cast of Star Wars

Princess Leia has the plan. She also knows very well what is valuable to the entire galaxy. The rebels appreciate her leadership. Her political skill has been the most important factor in uniting all the rebel factions in The Rebellion. She has brought groups with different interests together for a common cause. Leia is our Product Owner. She can shoot nicely with a blaster, but she is definitely not a soldier.

Luke on the other hand, can fight fat good. He gets things done. He shoots racer than the average Storm Trooper and he stands his ground with his Lightsaber. Han, Chewie and many of the X-Wing pilots, are like Luke in that sense. They brawl and get things done. There are also droids: they don’t fight as well, but they have different skills. The droids can hack computers or speak foreign languages. Luke and his companions make up a multidisciplinary team: the Development Team.

The development team is self-organizing. Take Han, for example. He performs best when you convince him of the importance of the mission. Then let him arrange the details himself with Chewie and the droids. If you can’t convince him, or you prescribe his tasks to him, he’ll go away.

The leaders of all rebel factions have an interest in the success of The Rebellion. A successful Rebellion will provide freedom and protection to their oppressed constituencies. The leaders of all Rebellion factions are the stakeholders.

Obi-Wan and Yoda are the mentors, the masters. They don’t wave their lightsabers as much as the rest, and they don’t have to. In fact, their mission is to educate and coach the team. This way the team can get the best out of themselves. Obi-Wan and Yoda know they won’t be around forever, so they strive to make themselves obsolete. Yoda and Obi-Wan are Scrum Masters. Even when they are dead, their wisdom continues to guide the team.

Have you noticed that neither Yoda nor Obi-Wan update the Burn Down chart? Nor are they the types to get started with post-its on a Scrum board.

Agile like The Empire

The Evil Empire is also Agile. The Evil Empire is based on the German Wehrmacht of World War II. The Wehrmacht was one of the most flexible, effective armies ever. The Nazis did not build that army but unfortunately inherited it.

In Star Wars, the Emperor is the main Product Owner. Darth Vader works with several Stormtrooper teams to create value for The Empire. He and the troopers are Development Teams. The Dark Side combines Product Owner and Scrum Master in one person: the Emperor. This is also their weakness. The Scrum framework strongly advises against it.

This construction prevents the Dark Side from learning from its mistakes quickly enough. It makes them less Agile. For example, they just keep building Death Stars even after the rebels destroy their Death Star up to three times. The Empire never seems to learn that committing all their resources to one superweapon is a dangerous gamble.

Scrum Events

Scrum has a number of events. These are meetings of the team or part of the team that recur in a cycle of up to 4 weeks. These events are: the Sprint Planning, the Daily Scrum, the Sprint Review and the Sprint Retrospective.

Sprint Planning

Star Wars, A New Hope – begins with Leia in dire straits. Darth Vader boards her ship and she must act quickly. She quickly creates a Scrum Sprint Planning. It’s an event with a Time Box- Darth Vader is coming! She and her team must come up with a good enough plan within the time left to her.

They decide that warning Obi-Wan Kenobi is the most valuable action. They discuss the objectives and the steps needed. And then the Sprint starts: the droids enter their Escape Pod. The team of droids is self-organizing: once they are underway, it is up to them to decide how to complete the mission.

Daily Scrum

As the story unfolds, we see that the droids have Daily Scrums – short funny conversations in which they make plans for the day ahead. But then their original plan is completely derailed: the droids are captured by Jawa’s. That plans prove untenable is also a regular occurrence in our own daily lives here on Earth! Fortunately, the droids are self-organizing and convinced of the importance of their mission. They manage to enlist the help of Luke and Obi-Wan despite their setbacks.

Sprint

Meanwhile, the Stormtroopers also started their Sprint . They have expertly closed the Mos Eisley spaceport. The troopers are fast, thorough and relentless. They just didn’t see Obi-Wan’s Jedi Mind Trick coming and have to finish their sprint with less results than they hoped.

Meanwhile, the rebel team has expanded. With Han, Obi-Wan, Chewie and Luke, the droids manage to escape from the planet Tatooine. Now that they have a Scrum Master – Obi-Wan – their performance improves visibly! They manage to free Leia and to bring the Death Star plans to the planet Yavin IV. Such feats they had not dared to expect beforehand! Their Velocity increases.

Sprint Review

On the planet Yavin IV, we meet our heroes in a war room. They stand around a hologram with stars, ships and planets. Our Development Organization – The Rebellion – has grown from 1 single team to multiple Scrum Teams. Leia is now Chief Product Owner. Each team has its own Product Owner: Han leads the smugglers, Gold Leader leads the X-Wing squadron.

Our heroes discuss the progress they’ve made and figure out what to do next. In Scrum, we call this the Sprint Review. Representatives from various rebel factions are present at this. It is important for these stakeholders to make sure that the overall plan aligns with the interests of their constituencies.

The assembled rebels have the plans in hand thanks to the droids. They have also already found a weak spot. The Product Owner, Leia, proposes a course of action: an attack on the Death Star. The stakeholders agree on the resources and risks required. Now the teams are ready for their detailed planning: the Sprint Planning. Yet before that, another event takes place….

Sprint Retrospective

Prior to the action in movies, there is usually a quiet moment of introspection and retrospection. In Scrum, we call this the Sprint Retrospective. As in movies, this can sometimes get quite emotional. Together with their Scrum Master, teams assess their capabilities and their learning experiences. They evaluate their goals and values. They look back at what they accomplished and how it went. In Star Wars, this is the calm before the storm. At this point in the film, Han’s commitment is still in doubt. Is he really on board? The Sprint Retrospective is the final event in the Sprint. After the Retrospective, the sprint stops and the next one starts immediately.

Resources

Scrum also has a number of tools for planning and progress. Those are the Sprint Backlog, the Product Backlog, the Scrum Board. Below you can read how our heroes deal with these.

Sprint Backlog

After our Retrospective, the next sprint starts again with Sprint Planning. The Star Wars films do not show much of the next Sprint Planning. We have to assume that the Rebel Alliance has created a good plan to coordinate the complex attack on the Death Star. The plan, the result of sprint planning, is a Sprint Backlog.

Product Backlog

The Chief Product Owner has an inspiring vision: a New Republic. There are several Epics the team must accomplish to make that vision a reality. Epics are main components in a big plan of action. In Scrum, we keep track of those Epics on a Product Backlog. The Backlog is a dynamic sorted to-do list for the team.

One of the Epic stories in Star Wars is the destruction of the Death Star. Why does this Epic matter? As long as The Empire has a Death Star, planets and peoples can easily be subjugated and rebellion has little chance. For destruction of the Death Star to succeed, however, the rebels must find a weakness. The weakness is derived from the Death Star plans.

Themes, Epics, User Stories and Tasks

Many terrestrial Scrum Teams organize their planned work – also known as their Product Backlog – into Themes, Epics, User Stories and Tasks. These are ways to divide the work into work packages and still maintain an overview. In Star Wars, the heroes don’t do that explicitly. However, the writers of the films did.

The theme of the Star Wars films is ‘Space opera.’ It consists of several Epic stories: ‘escape with the Death Star plans,’ ‘the attack on the Death Star,’ ‘Luke’s Jedi training,’ the battle for Hoth, ‘…

The epic stories consist of different (User) Stories. Take “the attack on the Death Star.This Epic consists of the following scenes: ‘distract Death Star defense artillery’, ‘destroy turrets around the trench’ and the ‘trench run’.

The story of the “trench run” can again be broken down into different actions: “fly into the trench,” “give Luke cover,” “take out Darth Vader,” “use the force,” “fire photon torpedo.

These Themes, Epics, User Stories and Tasks help teams connect their smallest actions to the overall mission.

Conclusion

Scrum is nothing new. It’s been around since a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Scrum simply formalizes many clever ways to organize teams effectively. Star Wars is an epic story of how small, focused teams can make a huge impact, often against all odds.

The Evil Empire also has its derivative in the real world. At some companies, Scrum is abused to force development teams to do more and more mindless work in less time: just like stormtroopers. The stormtroopers will eventually burn out.

That’s why The Evil Empire invented the Clones. In the real world, there are no Clones and Stormtroopers. In the real world, the self-organizing team of heroes always wins. Especially if they have a great Scrum Master and Product Owner .