A Fisherman’s Metaphor for Scrum

Memory can be a difficult thing to manage if you have PTSD or a variety of other conditions, so any hints and tips to help someone remember things are useful.

Metaphors are powerful tools for teaching and remembering.

A fishing net metaphor is a useful one I find for conveying the approach and value of the Scrum framework.

Like a fishing net, the Scrum framework has many holes or gaps. This gives it flexibility and allows you or the fisherman to move and shape it according to the fish you are trying to catch or the value you are trying to glean.

Unlike a fishing rod, which many of us might be more familiar with using, the net is unwieldy and can be daunting to master. You have to careful not to catch reefs or to lose control. However, while you can generate a lot of energy reeling in a minnow on your rod, the net allows smaller fish to slip through the gaps.

You may be moving out of your comfort zone by switching from the rod to the net, and you might not even catch anything the first time you fling the net out there, but when it’s working, you won’t be expending any unnecessary energy on minnows (or status update meetings for example). You could eat them, but their effort-value ratio isn’t worth it.

However, as flexible as it may sound, you must maintain your net. You must repair any tears, and mend any big holes, otherwise some of those bigger valuable fish will slip away. The Scrum framework may be lightweight, and may be deceptively simple but you need to look after the components it calls for, otherwise it will degrade, or even fall apart.

At the same time, if the ropes are too rigid, tough or taut, they could snap and create more costly holes. So too could an organisation’s Agile transformation suffer valuable losses if the the Scrum framework is imposed too rigidly. You need buy-in from your teams and stakeholders if it is to work. Fishermen don’t work alone.

So, if want to reap the valuable rewards of Scrum, adhere to the core components but also allow the flexibility of the gaps to fit around your ways of working and stakeholder requirements. It might also take more than one attempts to catch your fish!