Ok. So, you're doing SCRUM. Everything is hunky dory. You've got the standups happening; you're meeting with the customer; requirements are under control; your boss is impressed. But you're about to encounter the infamous Cowboy Coder.

The  Cowboy Rides Into Town

You're in week two of four. You're having a great standup meeting and then it happens. Your ScrumMaster, Eric,  asks Dave [the hottest developer on the planet] to give status. Dave, with a scowl on his face says "Geez. I told you Friday what my status is". Eric, as all well trained ScrumMasters do, gently replies to Dave that his tasks' seem to be way underestimated and that he is now 2 days late on delivery.

Silence hits the room. You, as Product Owner, turn white, dreading what this will do to team chemistry. You also know that Dave is very gifted as a software developer, but he's a bull in the China shop otherwise. No one likes working with Dave. He doesn't want to collaborate on problems, nor does he appreciate anyone 'peer reviewing' his code. Yikes. The Cowboy has finally shown up. His attitude tells everyone that he's the man and not to be questioned. 

'I Challenge You To A Duel'

Eric, again, quite politely says "Dave, your tasks have a lot of other dependencies, as you can see here in our Sprint backlog. Other members of the team are now blocked with their dependent tasks because you didn't give us accurate status. We could have avoided this task sequencing problem with a little communication".

Dave goes ballistic - "I can do this whole project by myself if I had to". Dave is fuming - he wants to get the last word in on the matter. "This whole SCRUM thing sucks. I liked it better the old way without all of this touchy feely crap. As a matter of fact, you all suck." Horrors, you think. You have visions of all kinds of squabbles, confusion, and ill will breaking out within the Team.

Susan, another developer on the team, says "Let's just table this for now and let everyone else give their status". Surprisingly, the team dutifully goes about giving their status while Dave sulks and scowls. Wow, this can't be good, you think - calm before the storm.

Shootout in the SCRUM Bullpen

Right before lunch, Susan sends out a meeting request for the Developers only. You rush over to Eric and say "This can't be good, Eric. What's going on?". Eric replies that the developers wanted a techie meeting only and asked him if he would mediate. You want to attend but heed Eric's advice to let things play out and not to panic. You'll stay out of the way and let the Team try and work things out.

The next day, you have butterflies, thinking that all hell has broken loose and it's going to be a bad day for the Team. You're shocked. Everyone is there, including Dave - and SCRUM goes well. After you corner Eric, you ask him how can this be after the meltdown yesterday? Eric explains. "The rest of the developers let Dave have it in the technical team meeting that Susan requested. I didn't have to say anything. They basically read Dave the riot act.

They told him, in no uncertain terms, that he was reponsible to the *team*. They also told him that they all had to work 4 hours overtime to compensate for him not completing his tasks. In so many words, they told him that he needed to knock it off and to be fair. Otherwise, they were willing to go on without him. After that, Dave apologized, they all shook hands and said that they wouldn't let each other down. So, it's gonna be ok."

Moral of the Story

Scrum teams, when well trained, are self correcting. Scrum emphasizes personal empowerment, transparency, accountability, and teamwork. As a result, when a member of the team violates the Scrum culture, the others will tend to push them back into alignment. This is especially true where routine standup meetings are the norm and it is clear that a teammate is violating the group trust and causing problems for everyone. Sometimes the ScrumMaster has to wield a heavy hand, but typically, the group will correct itself.

In summary, don't overreact to the typical conflicts that occur within a Scrum team. If you have trained your Team based on Ken Schwaber's work about Scrum (http://www.controlchaos.com/ ), most issues get no further than the ScrumMaster, if that far. Don't overreact to Cowboys, no matter how gifted they are. Much of their power is found in speaking quickly, repeatedly, and loudly. Trust the ScrumMaster and the team to eventually challenge the Cowboy. I thought it quite profound that this scripture speaks to this problem:

¹⁷ The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him. - Proverbs 18:17 NIV