Scrum Lake started in August 2020 when John and Ryan got together to discuss deepening Scrum Knowledge and advanced Scrum assessments, we agreed that knowledge comes from experience and we wanted to deepen our knowledge further through experience. We spoke about the content that we felt was needed, but more importantly, spoke about how this content is learned, embedded and embodied. Ryan's experience as an ex-teacher, his understanding of sticky-learning, the process of providing all knowledge with a 'hook' to make its re-call more fluid. John's experiences of clean language, the power of metaphor and stories, and the work he has done over the years with teams and organisations. There are many options to achieve effective recall, a common one is through story-telling. Our brains love to play, we crave fun and imagination in our continued learning - metaphors and analogies are one way to achieve this. Over several weeks we worked together exploring personal metaphors for Scrum and learning, co-creating a unique way to explore scrum more deeply.
In early September 2020, after seeing the value received by others we felt it we needed to test a hypothesis that these metaphors and stories had value beyond our own learning and we decided we needed to test this out the market. We mapped out metaphors' boundaries and created an interactive canvas from which to share them. This was the birth of Scrum Lake. Unconsciously the structure and shape of the lake seemed to fall into place, it formed a familiar 3, 5, 3 patterns, offering interwoven routes, connections and paths to tell stories about Scrum. The feedback we have received on this approach has been phenomenally positive. By continually running workshops and incrementally developing our product, Scrum Lake has grown organically through input from its stakeholders. We believe it has matured and shown value due to offering practitioners the chance to raise questions personal to them and explore them with fellow Scrum Masters.
Over time, they mapped out their metaphors' boundaries and created an interactive canvas from which to share them. This was the birth of Scrum Lake. Without attempting to, the structure formed a familiar 3, 5, 3 pattern, offering different but interwoven routes to explore Scrum Lake. The feedback it has received on this approach has been phenomenally positive.
By continually running free workshops and incrementally developing our product, Scrum Lake has grown organically through input from its stakeholders. Ryan and John believe it has matured and shown value due to offering practitioners the chance to raise questions personal to them and explore them with fellow Scrum Masters.
The lake is a metaphor for Scrum. It's a more human way to explore how Scrum works in complex environments, making it easier to engage with. At its surface, it's turbulent, choppy, and unclear. At its depths, it's dark, uncharted and mysterious. As you and your team gain a deeper understanding of how to apply Scrum within your domain, that travel deeper into Scrum Lake, hoping to make the unknown, transparent. The purpose is that the deeper you explore, the more value you find.
Scrum Lake workshops are rich with analogies and metaphors to help explain tough Scrum concepts at a human level. The lake contains treasure chests, sharks, submarines and many more things hidden within its waters.
In our workshops, we use a range of similes and metaphors to aid discussions. Metaphors are a diving rod for the brain, they enable us to richly describe the world as we represent and embody it and help us to attach meanings to things. Whilst these are 'our' metaphors and we hope you find them useful, we encourage you to come up with your own during our workshops to support your understanding.
Scrum - Scrum is like a lake. It is deep and filled with unknowns due to its complexity. It has a turbulent surface where things aren't transparent, but the deeper you go, the more evidence you can gather to adapt the exploration. It is a lake based on empiricism.
Five Values - The values are the bedrock of the lake. They support the boundaries. If the bedrock cracks, the water can leak away, taking focus away from exploration and onto fixing the boundaries.
Three Pillars - The pillars support the whole lake. Without all three, the ability to explore and learn is impeded because the lake isn't supported. Any value produced from the lake is questionable.
Sprint - The Sprint is a voyage. It is timebound by the amount of supplies you take aboard your ship. All events and activities take place on the ship. It is a container for all things.
Sprint Planning - The Sprint Planning occurs whilst your ship is in port. You are at a 'known' location. You have gathered evidence from your previous voyages and use it to make a plan of where to explore next. You've gathered your supplies and you raise the sails to set off.
Daily Scrum - The Daily Scrum is the helm of the ship. Based on your recent progress, you need to adapt your course to ensure you remain on track to find your treasure. Sometimes you may not need to change your course, but you ensure you at least inspect the progress you've made.
Sprint Review - The Sprint Review occurs when you have found your treasure. You have travelled back to port and lowered your sails. You show your treasure to your stakeholders (the King/villagers), inspect it, and decide where you should explore next.
Sprint Retrospective - The Sprint Retrospective is where you have dropped your anchor and the explorers are discussing their voyage. They discuss how things went and they do this to make their issues transparent so that they can make improvements for next time.
People - The Scrum Team consists of explorers who are on the voyage. There are different accountabilities for each, but they are all equal in supporting the voyage. They explore together.
Impediments - The impediments are sharks in the lake. If they aren't avoided or removed from the lake, they will cause problems for the voyage. They make it so that you are less likely to obtain your treasure.
Technical Debt - Technical debt is like an octopus. It wraps its tentacles around the process, progress and outcomes and unless regularly attended to, can become ingrained and hard to remove.
Product Backlog - You have built up a scroll of everything you want to achieve on your voyages. You may not need to do all of them, but it's a possible list that your explorers think they will need to do to achieve their goal.
Product Goal - Your scroll has a title. It is a long term objective that they want to achieve. The title at the top of our scroll says: 'To own all the treasure in the lake so that we are the richest explorers of all time.' All explorers commit to this goal.
Sprint Backlog - You know where you want to explore for your treasure, but you need a map! The treasure map describes the general area of where to explore and makes a best effort to plot your voyage, but everyone agrees that it can be changed as you progress.
Sprint Goal - Every treasure map need an 'X' marks the spot. It is a fixed position, but how you get there is not fully known until you have made your voyage. Everyone agrees that it's achievable and valuable to get there.
Increment - The treasure chest! It contains lots of individual pieces of treasure but together, they hold much more value.
Definition of Done - You've found the treasure, but how do you guarantee it hasn't been tampered with? You use a padlock! When you deliver the treasure to the King/villagers, you can prove its quality by explaining what the padlock means and that they can trust the quality of it.
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