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I was timeboxed in a holistic scrum

More lithe than agile

Stob Do you suffer from unsatisfactory projectile climaxes? Is your software construction methodology previous generation? Do you require the predictable outcome of pre-planning with the flexibility of iteration and the lightness of touch of partially de-hierarchicalised management approaches?

No need to say anything. I can tell from your expression.

 Of course you do.

And that's why you need SCROB:

Software Constructed Rightly, Once and Best.

The mystique of SCROB

Certain modern management techniques, in spite of claiming to be based on democratic principles, can leave you with the feeling of being roundly patronised, of somehow being laughed at behind your back. Earnestly being assured that you are being empowered, while simultaneously treated like a halfwit.

SCROB is supreme at this.

Remember those not terribly geographic geography lessons, where dull facts about U-shaped river valleys and the spread of Arndale shopping centres were cast aside? And Miss Barclay instead had us push desks together to form giggling teams to simulate the economic circumstances of competing ice cream vendors on Southend promenade with counters, cardboard boxes, dice and empty washing-up liquid bottles?

Remember the times when your interest and sympathy in some modern malaise has briefly been piqued by a radio talking head? Only to hear her execute an abrupt corner in her monologue, and dramatically and counter-intuitively assert that the (religious) solution to the problem was originally expounded many hundreds of years ago in that historic hotbed of rational cooperation, the Middle East?

Remember when you had been doing rather well with the latest William-and-Katie joke? And have successfully captured everyone's attention with rather clever embellishments and witticisms of your own? And you suddenly realise that you have quite forgotten the hilarious punchline you have supposedly being leading everybody towards for the last five minutes?

SCROBling is a bit like all these things, only more so.

SCROB in summary

Above all else, SCROB is simple. SCROB can be summarised in a page of PowerPoint-pertinent powerful points:

  • Catchy slogans over grown-up language - say it neat or say it not
  • Glib metaphors over thought-out reality - don't let the wolf of complexity devour the Little Red Riding Hoodie of regular software delivery
  • 'Stakeholders' over 'interested parties' - we are all stakeholders now
  • Rules about meetings over serious planning or design - let nobody speak without wearing the gauntlet of clarity and the hat of reasonable brevity
  • Gaining traction over losing pulsion - join in with the traction action
  • Enormity over EVIL - you aren't in favour of EVIL, are you? Well, then.

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