A Sign of Too Much Work?
Last night there was boxing on Showtime. My husband likes watching it. I, on the other hand, am pretty good at sleeping through it. My slumber last night must not have been too deep though because I have a vague memory of talking to him during the match and this morning he certainly assured me that I did.
The conversation I am about to recap for you is a likely sign I am thinking a little too much about work.
Some History
The IT team I work with converted from Waterfall to Agile in January of this year. We are in the process of wrapping up operational enhancements that we call “Agile v2″ in the hope that we can address some of the gaps in the processes we rolled out at the beginning of the year. This has meant countless working sessions, process flows, and debates on the good - bad – and ugly of the way the teams have been doing theirwork. It has also meant receiving Agile-Purist advice from our Agile Coaches as well in order to help us keep true to the methodology we are committing to.
Last Night’s Conversation
As my husband tells me, in the middle of the match I started trying to explain to him that boxing was like agile software development. It probably went something like this…
Me: (picking my head off of pillow) “Hey, ya know, agile is sort of like boxing.”
Him: “What?”
Me: (sleeping)
Him: “Honey, did you say something?”
Me: “Huh? Yeah…Agile. It’s sort of like boxing.”
Him: “What are you talking about? Just go back to sleep.”
Me: (somewhat incoherently) “No, it’s true. Agile is like boxing because…[something nonsensical]”
Him: “Sweetie, you’re half asleep. You’re not making any sense.”
Me:(somewhat belligerently) “I am not sleeping, they really are similar because… [something nonsensical]“
There were probably some pretty significant pauses between my rebuttals and it probably continued on for several more rounds. This morning we got a good laugh about it, and he was convinced I was completely out of my mind. But of course I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and once I drew a parallel in my head I had to try and convince him that Agile and boxing really are similar. My rationale was that like agile…
- Boxing has rounds (similar to sprints)
- During the breaks between each round they talk about how it went (a retrospective)
- Before starting the next round they talk about what they should do (sprint planning)
Very simplistic, but at least amusing – and very likely I’m in need of a break from the office. 
I love this. I was hoping you’d get to the similarities by the end so you wouldn’t leave us hanging as to what they were. I’m thinking I now need to get a Mike Tyson-style face tattoo, though, if I really want a team to listen to me next time I’m their ScrumMaster. Thanks for the post.