scratus

During an agile project there is usually a time when the consultants have gone home and it's clear that things are quite as rosey as they'd have you believe that they were to be in the agile seminar that you took. Usually around this time the daily scrum transforms in to scratus. Communication becomes more vague, engineers take a defensive posture whereby they always accomplish something that is important to the project yet the project doesn't get closer to completion. The ultimate tell tale sign of scratus is when the managment is very tense and the engineering team refers to their work by the defect number or feature number rather than the actual feature or defect in English.

Manager: What did you work on yesterday Bill?

Bill: I closed defects 1234,5432, 3212 and 3422. I also worked on feature 1.7 from the requirements.

Manager: Are you blocked?

Bill: No sir.

Manager: Did you update our Rally online agile tracking platform with your progress?

Bill <in nervous voice now>: Yes sir. I do before every scratus, er, I mean scrum.

Manager: When will 1.7 be done?!?

Bill <meekly>: Maybe next week.

Manager: Who's next? We've got a deadline people!

Scratus

A term used for a little Scrooge rat that never responds. A term often used about a person with the name Matthew Allfrey.

Hey guys, this guy is a Scratus. He’s gone on do not disturb