Scrum Master

When we make new hires at the church, there's an email that goes out that has a bit of a bio about each person as well, as it introduces that employee to the rest of us in a nice way.  Anyway, this one new employee had experience as a "scrum master," and that was a big conversation with us initially, because we didn't know what a scrum master even was!  Here's a message I sent out:

**********

     I’m going to admit something.  I’ve never heard of a Scrum Master before.  But I need to use this phrase more often.  To me, it sounds like a person who works on a whaling boat.

FOLLOW UP:  I looked up what a Scrum Master does, and here’s a definition:  "The Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring a true scrum process over the course of a project."

    This didn’t clear things up for me, so I did some more research.  The following excerpt from “Scrum.org"  was written by someone who was apparently challenged to see how many times they can have the word “scrum” in one paragraph: 

     "Thanks to its many benefits, scrum continues to grow in popularity. According to the Scrum Alliance report last year on “The State of Scrum,” 89 percent of agile users use the scrum approach, where 62 percent of those polled have an in-house scrum coach and 86 percent hold a daily scrum meeting.  These statistics show the importance of the scrum master, for no scrum team should be without one.”

     This paragraph is pure gold to me.  I’m still really fuzzy about what a Scrum Master is, but nevertheless, I’m excited about having one on staff.  Our next whaling trip is scheduled for late June.

Have a scrummy day,

-d

**********

So it was funny when we sat down to watch "Pirates of the Caribbean:  On Stranger Tides" this evening, and behold, we met this character again:

I completely forgot about Scrum!  What a coincidence though, huh?  Anyway, Scrum is one of the best things to come out of the last two movies, this poor abused pirate who just wants a proper kiss from a mermaid.  

So tonight we got some of that much-needed rain, and of course it cooled down things a bit.  There was even a rumble or two of thunder out there.  It's just great spending time on that back deck under the canopy, listening to the rain in the forest there.  All the birds were chirping, as the chipmunks and squirrels were running around.  A hummingbird even briefly flitted right up to my face as if to complain about the lack of hummingbird food around here.  We have it on the front porch, but we'll probably move it to the back deck now, just to see if we get more visits.

The rain was great tonight, and I was glad we timed our pool visit this morning when we did.  Maddie and I were down at the pool for nearly an hour and a half early this afternoon, and being that it's a Saturday, some other families joined us over that time.  It was a really nice time out there - the water was cool again, but not as cool as last week.  The weather was just right, nice and warm, but not so awful that even if you were in the pool, you were looking for shade.  We were playing "Guess Who?" again, and tossing some of the pool toys back and forth. 

We got back and Mom made a nice dinner, and for me it was salmon patties, along with some salad.  I did my walk today on the treadmill, this time a POV march up to the Delicate Arch in Utah.  I've actually walked this trail in person before, quite some time ago.  We got up there, and no one else was there - we had the whole thing to ourselves.  It was a hot day though, and that might explain a few things.  Saying the weather in July in the Utah desert area is hot is certainly an understatement though.  

We said our prayers tonight, and we read as well, and Maddie and I were studying our lines for tomorrow's script.  Soon after, it was time to get to bed a little earlier than usual.  It's going to be another big Sunday tomorrow!