Learned today: Scrum is like a roundabout

October 01, 2009 | 1 Minute Read
This post was originally posted on my old blog.

Yesterday I was attending the scrum breakfast in Bern.

François Bachmann held an insightful presentation where he drew analogies between traffic and software projects: Projektstau auflösen - wie Sie Ihrem Manager Agilität erklären können (Breaking up traffic jam - how you can explain Agile to your manager).

The main analogy was:

Scrum is like a roundabout

Simple & Transparent Concept

Based on the Pull principle (not Push)

Provides Feedback

Self-organising mechanism

Heavily relies on discipline and personal responsibility

Roundabouts cause uncertainty and precaution at first contact (if you are used to traffic lights - command & control style).

Roundabouts are optimized for local decisions (only precedence from one direction is relevant) - traffic is too complex for exact planning and influenced by unforeseeable events, only high level planning is feasible, details have to taken care of when they happen.

A lot of decision-makers with potential different interests are involved

Individual decision-makers have only incomplete informations

Roundabouts work as well for rush-hours as for no-traffic situations

Benefits: less conflict, higher safety, optimized throughput, reduced waste, reduced costs, calm & aesthetic

(http://www.sandiego.gov/planning/programs/transportation/pdf/roundabout.pdf)

Problems: Not appropriate for some situations (highway crossing a footpath), requires space, needs getting used to