Last week I shared an analogy on LinkedIn that resonated with many, and revolted at least one.
I said that scrummasters should treat firefighters as their role model.
ScrumMasters, like firefighters, should not be busy all the time.
If SMs are busy all the time it’s because they’re either
- over committed (and they’re not serving their customers well), or,
- they’re keeping themselves and others busy improving (which is bad because it’s easier to create changes than it is to absorb them).
Likewise, if firefighters are busy they’re either over committed (and can’t respond to fires quickly - bad 🔥 🔥 🔥) or they are busy starting fires.
I probably don’t need to point this out, but that second option is bad.
I learn a lot from analogies.
If I’m struggling to figure something out I’ll uaually go invent an analogy and THEN figure out where it works for me and where it doesn’t.
If you’ve read Rolling Rocks Downhill, I learned more by writing about Cheryl’s kitchen than I did by studying agile teams.
The person who didn’t like the analogy started out liking it (because, yes, we don’t want SMS to be over committed or making everyone busy) but - after a days thought - abandoned the analogy because he disliked (immensely) the idea that firefighters were reactive.
That’s okay. He won’t suffer without this analogy in his life … but I’ve found that the best analogies always work well up to a point but then they stop working. And … most of the value I get out of analogies comes from finding that crossover point.
Hope that helps.