Lunedi

How is a judge to decide on a case? Written law is general, abstract, concrete but not comprehensive. Particular cases, context, subjective issues are not considered in the text. Why is it not trivial to be a judge or a jury member? Because they have to interpret the law. And what have they used for centuries now to support their interpretation? Cases and spirit. Examples and intuition. Both ends meet. And what about Scrum?

Scrum is simple and hard. Why so? Because the definition is clear and concise, but in order to use that definition we need to interpret it depending on the context. We clearly got the equivalent to case law: case studies and good practices have served us well for years now. Examples let us map, consider deltas and readjust for our context. But spirit has somehow been absent. Or at least it has not had the prominent and explicit role I dare say it deserves. But can spirit be portrayed?

Let’s try and sketch it at least. Maybe spirit is like good code: you can’t define it, but you can definitely cry out loud that some piece of code is horrid. What do you think about this list? I promise I will detail its members in upcoming posts:

• Trust
• Self-organization
• Empiricism
• Pragmatism
• Idealism/Kaizen
• Discipline
• Rythm
• Constructive Feedback
• Simplicity
• Technical Excellence
• Ludic spirit
• Commitment
• Responsibility
• Focus
• Humbleness
• Balance