Broken Windows and Broken Scrum

Recently, I was in a conversation with a scrum master that was of the opinion that correcting teams on all the small details of practicing scrum was the best way to develop them into a high performing team. For example, if someone is a minute late to stand-up, call them out. Or the daily stand-up must not deviate from the “Yesterday, today, and in the way” script regardless how well the team is communicating.

I can see the merits of developing discipline. However, this approach reminds me of the Broken Windows Theory of crime reduction. Without explanation or coaching that includes the rational for practicing scrum in such a way, there is a real possibility for negative unintended consequences.

  • The Broken Windows theory was meant to be applied to situations in need of a reduction of crime. To apply this approach to scrum practices is to imply that any deviation from the scrum framework is criminal.
  • Similar to how the Broken Windows theory resulted in the emergence of “zero tolerance” laws, applying such an approach to scrum teams and strictly enforcing how they may or may not follow the scrum framework is likely to result in a lot of command-and-control zero tolerance behaviors. The guides will become rules and, in turn, inflexible laws.

The approach I’ve found to be more effective is to hunt down the root causes to issues, for which being late to stand-ups or poor communication during stand-ups are a symptom. It’s more like being a big game hunger. Seek out the root of the problem, solve that problem, and it’s likely many of the lesser issues will resolve themselves.