Little Scrummer
Come they told me, Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
Surprise! Another karaoke special!
I was trying to write an introduction to Awareness Recursion Theory (ART) for this post, when I happened upon a former opera singer who is now a Scrum Master, meaning that she leads a team of software developers like the ones I used to be a part of.
Singer/Scrummer! Suddenly my head was filled with a song fragment that I captured two years ago after resigning from software. It was a Scrum-themed takeoff on “Little Drummer Boy” that I typed into a text file and squirreled away. Now I couldn’t get it out of my mind, and I kept filling in more lyrics instead of writing about Awareness Recursion Theory.
Finally I (divinely) surrendered to it, and here we are. Unlike the others, I have not performed this one. I’ve only just now finalized the words.
You’ll need a quick primer on Scrum and how it embodies salvation for software development:
Scrum is the sorely needed Better Way of managing a software development project. To many software professionals, it is now the One True Way, because although we still have no clue how long it will take us to write code, Scrum gives management a granular gauge of our progress that is much more useful than “not long now” or “almost done” or “just have to finish the last part.”
I did not realize how perfectly suited “The Little Drummer Boy” Christmas carol is to Scrum until pondering Scrum’s salvational role in the software profession. There is a feeling of all geek faces turned skyward in reverence as the code is reviewed, merged, and delivered unto the customer in accord with the One True Way. The granular march of completing work one ticket at a time has a messianic quality, a humble inevitability that keeps everyone typing along toward a better future, beat by beat, ticket by ticket. When my song says “Finish some,” this is what I am invoking.
You must channel this feeling as you sing the song. If you don’t, it’s your loss.
Key terms:
Red Team: along with Blue Team, popular names for a Scrum team,
task, ticket: smallest granular units of work to do,
ticket closed by me: when you close a ticket, the system logs your name—good job!
user story: bundle of related tasks or tickets,
stand-up meeting: status meeting kept brief by not allowing anyone to sit,
estimation: rough guess at the workload of a task or story; done well, they average out to something predictable; the core of Scrum salvation!
size three: estimation is often in relative units on a scale of one to five,
MVP: Minimum Viable Product, a first version with bare-minimum useful features; can refer to the whole product or a new module or feature,
sprint: fixed block of time, often two weeks, for working on a selected set of tasks and nothing else; the whole project is a series of back-to-back sprints,
code review: other developers review your code before merging it into the shared project; before Scrum, we didn’t always do this!
camel case: variables/functions with namesLikeThis, wordsRunTogether separatedByCaps—see, the caps look likeCamelHumps; often enforced for readability,
unit test: self-test that can run automatically, tedious to write, the bane of many developers’ existence, certainly mine,
commit: a unit of new code that a developer uploads to the shared project,
conflict: incompatible commits from developers working at the same time, trying to change the same chunk of code in different ways; must be resolved through an often tedious process.
In software terms, nothing says salvational world peace like conflict-free commits.
Not all of the above are strictly within Scrum’s definition, but they are all key parts of the Scrum developer experience.
—me, this block quotation
NOW press play on the stirring recording below, and scroll down to read the words along with it. If you do it right, you’ll feel the jubilation as the code review is approved and we all rejoice.
The Little Drummer Boy, arr. Mark Hayes – Score & Sound, Alfred Music Choral
{
Come they told me, # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
Red Team is where you'll be, # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
We have a task for you, # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
The user story's new, # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
# Scrum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
# Scrum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
Stand-up meeting time, # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
Here we come.
}
{
Estimation! # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
Is it size three or two? # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
How ready will you be, # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
To build the MVP? # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
# Scrum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
# Scrum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
Sprint is ending soon, # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
Finish some.
}
{
Code review now, # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
All names in camel case, # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
Full unit tests we see, # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
Commits are conflict-free, # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
# Scrum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
# Scrum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
Ticket closed by me, # Scah-rum Scrum-Scrum Scrum
Finishing some.
}I formatted it like computer code. Isn’t that cute?
MOAR MUSIC!!!
London Symphony Orchestra - The Little Drummer Boy
Orchestra only, for practicing the words.
for KING + COUNTRY - Little Drummer Boy (Official Music Video)
Decadent rapture of strapping millennial lads, Martin Luther doth Protest (too much?).
CrowdHealth embodies your salvation
from high medical costs!
Imagine the feeling of all members’ faces turned skyward in reverence as the bills are reviewed, approved, and paid, one medical procedure at a time.
Notes
The Little Drummer Boy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Drummer_Boy
1941, “Carol of the Drum” song written by American composer Katherine Kennicott Davis,
1951, popular recording by Austrian Trapp Family,
1957, arrangement by Jack Halloran, still the prominent arrangement performed today,
1958, popular recording by the Harry Simeone Chorale released as “The Little Drummer Boy.”
Little Drummer Boy, lyrics
https://i.infopls.com/lyrics/LittleDrummerBoy.pdf
Pure perfection of lyric meter!
Inspect Davis’ three verses to see absolute consistency in number of syllables and stress on each syllable.
At the word level, we have near perfection.
Verse 1: 27 words = 24 one-syllable + 3 two-syllable
Verse 2: 28 words = 26 one-syllable + 2 two-syllable
Verse 3: 29 words = 27 one-syllable + 2 two-syllable
-------
TOTAL 84 words = 77 one-syllable + 7 two-syllable
(plus 15 pas, 21 rums, and 63 pums)Numbers don’t lie!
Can you write a whole song with only one-syllable words? Ms. Davis succeeded 11/12 of the time. If two outta three ain’t bad, she’s downright divine!
The song delivers value one syllable at a time, creating that processional feeling of Scrum-like inevitability. Go sing my version again and revel in its messianic deliverance! Software is saved! (I even got a tear in my eye once when the music swelled for “code review.” Not kidding!)
My version? I matched Davis’ meter perfectly at the syllable level and tried my best at the word level, except I deliberately broke it for effect with the four-syllable “Estimation!” It’s such a religious word in Scrum, it really saves our souls, and it goes perfectly in that spot where the energy begins to mount. Turn your hands upward in front of you as you sing it.
Verse 1: 26 words = 22 one-syllable + 4 two-syllable
Verse 2: 22 words = 17 one-syllable + 3 two-syllable + 1 three + 1 four
Verse 3: 22 words = 15 one-syllable + 5 two-syllable + 2 three
--------
TOTAL 70 words = 54 one-syllable + 12 two-syllable + 3 three + 1 four
(plus 15 Scah-rums and 69 Scrums; gladly, I was not forced to adjudicate the number of syllables in Scah-rum; Scrum-Scrum may be a single hyphenated word, but it's clearly two Scrums)Monosyllabically, I fell far short of Davisian levels, I’m afraid, not even cracking 80%, though obviously I had other concerns.
I would have loved to match the original rhymes—normally a stickler for that—but there weren’t a lot of options to match “bring” and “King” on a downbeat and still remain within the Scrum theme and sounding natural, e.g. “I have no code to bring” but better. Believe me, I tried. Note that “ready” is not acceptable at the end of the obvious line, because we would need its second syllable stressed, yuck.
Scrum (software development)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)
One of many “Agile” frameworks, probably the most popular, certainly the most institutionally adopted. My favorite is “Kanban,” also pretty popular, in which there is no sprint. Think of the sprint as a sort of spoon…
THE MATRIX: THERE IS NO SPOON
Agile software development
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development
The Lutherans of software. In 2001, they proverbially nailed their proverbial 95 theses to the proverbial door… Okay, they publicly posted to the Internet the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, effectively banning my entire style of midnight decadence called “I’ll know what I’m trying to code after I’ve coded it.”
My way brought me several smashing successes in the twentieth century but was surely a nail-biter for management—when I wasn’t also the “management.” So I can’t blame ‘em, but it sure drains the joy out of it for me.
I concede that Agile has its own appeal, a sort of “eat the next potato chip” addictive mojo. It’s all in the crunch.