Skip to main content

Let's compare Scrum with Chess for a second

Last post 05:07 pm February 29, 2020 by James Noble
4 replies
08:37 am February 29, 2020

Chess is a board game utilizing a chessboard and sixteen pieces of six types for each player. Each type of piece moves in a distinct way. The goal of the game is to checkmate (threaten with inescapable capture) the opponent's king.

The history of chess can be traced back nearly 1500 years.

So this comparison cross my mind in order of number of Scrum team up to 9 Dev team members + SM and PO, which is 12 members in total because "Large Development Teams generate too much complexity for an empirical process to be useful."

If people are managing 16 figures 1500 years, how is not possible to manage 16 people in Scrum team also?

Hope you get the point :)

Dejan


10:25 am February 29, 2020

I'm not a chess player, but there is a small difference between managing 16 chess figures and managing a development team. 

In chess you manage 16 pieces, but there are only two persons interacting. The pieces only go were you put them.

The outcome is the result of the actions and reactions of those two persons.

 


12:18 pm February 29, 2020

@Dejan Majkic, I was expecting something else when I read the title of this post but the difference lies in the fact that live human beings are complex in nature and the number of communication channels increases with the addition of 1 member to the team. Based on research the findings suggested that the optimum team size is between 3-9. Now, having said that it does not mean you cannot have a team of 16 people. You can, but bear in mind the risk due to the communication channels and the coordination issues. There are some teams out there that are still successful with more than 9 people on the team, but those could be rare cases.

 

Hope this helps.


12:22 pm February 29, 2020

A better comparison might be to have 16 real, self-organizing people standing on real squares, and then tell them that only one team member is allowed to move on their team's turn.

I can only imagine the process of them collectively arriving at the best possible move.


05:07 pm February 29, 2020

I worked with a 17 member scrum team at one point for about a year. The amount of effort required for effective communication plus the potential impacts of going back through Tuckerson's (forming/storming/norming/performing) when something significant changed was eye opening.

The recommendation for a team less then 9 in size is a good one based on my experience.

(I've also dealt with smaller sized teams of 3 - 5. They have some downsides too, many around having fewer options if something takes a team member out for a period of time (unexpected illness etc).

~Jamie N


By posting on our forums you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.

Please note that the first and last name from your Scrum.org member profile will be displayed next to any topic or comment you post on the forums. For privacy concerns, we cannot allow you to post email addresses. All user-submitted content on our Forums may be subject to deletion if it is found to be in violation of our Terms of Use. Scrum.org does not endorse user-submitted content or the content of links to any third-party websites.

Terms of Use

Scrum.org may, at its discretion, remove any post that it deems unsuitable for these forums. Unsuitable post content includes, but is not limited to, Scrum.org Professional-level assessment questions and answers, profanity, insults, racism or sexually explicit content. Using our forum as a platform for the marketing and solicitation of products or services is also prohibited. Forum members who post content deemed unsuitable by Scrum.org may have their access revoked at any time, without warning. Scrum.org may, but is not obliged to, monitor submissions.