Thoughts on weak links and Alexandrian life in Scrum

Abstract

This paper looks at the Scrum software development process through a lens that emphasizes small worldness, nestedness, and scale-freeness, all characteristic of networks that feature weak links between their modules. Scrum has gained popularity over the past decade as a means of delivering valuable software to its host organization on a regular basis. Since weak links characterize natural and social systems at every scale, practitioners of Scrum should be able to improve their teams' processes by applying lessons learned from studying weak links. When practitioners look for weak links directly, they may find the task daunting and ask the question: "How can I tell whether weak links are strengthening or weakening my team's Scrum process if I can't even find them?" For the answer, this paper looks to Christopher Alexander's characteristics of wholeness, integrity, or life -- strong centers, levels of scale, echoes, alternating repetition, and, in particular, the characteristic called deep interlock and ambiguity -- which may correlate with the presence of weak links.