SCRUM - what's in a word? And what does this say about our assumptions?

SCRUM - what's in a word? And what does this say about our assumptions?

A few weeks back I volunteered at an event to encourage young girls to take up IT and Technology as a career path. At the event a presenter was introducing the school girls to the concepts of Agile. The presenter, a young woman who introduced herself as being from South Africa asked the room of girls "so who knows what a SCRUM is?" I think she was a bit surprised, even shocked, when only one hand went up. "I think it's about food because it rhymes with "crumb" said the young girl". The presenter said "Ok - err...no. Has any anyone heard of rugby?" Again not a single hand went up. This was Victoria, Australia after all - the home of many sports, (including Rugby) but the state in which MOST schools offer the kids to play netball, cricket, football (soccer and Australian rules), rowing, tennis etc. But usually not rugby (some boy's schools being the exception). The young woman had intended to reach the audience STARTING with a known, understood word, and then building on that shared understanding of what a scrum was, to THEN describe how the concept works in an rapid iterative development software cycle.

Instead she found herself starting with NO shared understanding and this caused her talk to be confusing for the intended audience. In South Africa, NSW or Queensland it might have been a great start. SCRUM it seems is a sports-originated word that does not have a universally understood meaning.

A second example: when I was a junior in the IT world I heard about a "motivational" talk given by a new incoming American CIO to a major Australian company who extolled everyone to "get off the diamond" - again there was NO shared understanding at all - at that stage baseball was not played in Melbourne and the audience just drifted away knowing he had said something important - but not clear exactly what!

So all this has me thinking - what assumptions am I making about a shared understanding? In other words, what are my blind spots or blinkers that hinder my reach-outs to people? In IT and digital health and academia we use acronyms for speed of communications and preciseness - but that only works if there is a shared vocabulary. This applies in healthcare too - and even at an IT level: it's not enough to just interconnect IT systems - we have to have a shared understanding of what drug names mean, what disease names are - and how parts of the human body and diseases are related. There is a HUGE amount of research into this space (see: SNOMED/CT for example: https://www.snomed.org/ ) but it is a constantly challenging matter. Getting a national shared health record system that can safely share patient data requires a deep agreement in the understanding of terms.

One more small example: recently a podcaster I enjoy referred to it being "summer all over the world with long daylight hours". Of course for those of us "down under" it is winter - and this lack of thought about language immediately grated and reduced my appreciation for her content.

These days my personal micro brand is around communications. I'd like to communicate clearly, and I'd like to help others communicate clearly, and one plea I have is please don't use terms unless you REALLY are sure the recipients share your context.

And I have a request - please let ME know if you find me using non-obvious words, or language that I assume is understood but perhaps is not.

The mathematician / comedian Tom Lehrer once mused about the 1960s difficulties in intergenerational communication said sarcastically that "If a person feels he can't communicate, the least he can do is shut up about it." Ha ha - indeed. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/tom_lehrer_384937

Let me know your thoughts...