Karen Bruns

"Who & What Scrum"

When an organization begins their agile journey, they often have questions about who will play what role in their particular environment. Sometimes this arises from an organization's ideas surrounding ownership and who will have what level of authority. The game of Who & What Scrum has team players choosing a role to play during the game. This game reveals how complicated it can be for organizations to come to alignment on decisions surrounding roles and responsibilities. Playing the game prompts valuable conversation rooting out differences of opinion. Further, it helps to provide organizations with a strategy for communicating their decisions in a non-threatening way; helping people to understand the expectations associated with each role. This game challenges the mindset of traditional accountability and ownership. This game supports the succeed together-fail together mindset as the teams playing begin to see that "ownership" can often be broader than a single person or role.