By Pat Guariglia
I have been the Scrum Master for this one team for several years. The other day I arrived a few minutes early to the room we use for our daily Scrum and sat down to gather my thoughts before the meeting. I was in the room by myself when I noticed all of the scuffing and marks on the walls. When we started using this room for our daily Scrum meetings, it was freshly painted and hardly used. Two years later, I am looking at the walls of a well-used room, a room that hosts our daily stand-up meetings… a room that gets dirty.
Seeing the dirt on the walls reminded me of how tactile the whole Scrum process really is. In Scrum, you cannot be afraid to get dirty. You work with your hands, body and mind. When Scrum is done well, the team becomes a well-oiled machine that takes on a personality of its own. The seasoned Scrum team reacts organically to change and knows how to process it.
Good Scrum involves taking yourself out of the virtual world and into the real world. Unlike other software methodologies (waterfall), Scrum is the framework that thrives on continuous hands-on experiences, plus tactile and verbal feedback. It works best when people are engaged and physically involved. Collocation, physical task boards, daily Scrum meetings, and customer collaboration all require the team to be there physically.
