Whether it is a natural disaster or a development project in crises, engaging team members is critical. Learn the surprising similarities between SCRUM and the crises management standard known as the Incident Command System.
Have you ever noticed that certain management approaches seem to work everywhere? SCRUM isn’t just for software teams—its structure appears in crisis management, military operations, and anywhere high-performing teams need to coordinate under pressure.
The claim here is simple: SCRUM’s principles are universal. We can see evidence for this by comparing SCRUM to the Incident Command System (ICS), the standard used for managing natural disasters and emergencies.
When you map SCRUM artifacts and meetings to their ICS equivalents, the parallels become clear:
| SCRUM Element | ICS Equivalent | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Product Owner | Incident Commander | Sets priorities and direction |
| Scrum Master | Planning Section Chief | Facilitates process, removes obstacles |
| Development Team | Operations Section | Executes the actual work |
| Product Backlog | Incident Action Plan (IAP) | Prioritized list of objectives |
| Sprint Planning 1 | ICS-201 Meeting | Select objectives/stories for work period |
| Sprint Backlog | Incident Objectives (ICS-202) | Chosen stories for the sprint |
| Sprint Planning 2 | Assignment Planning | Break objectives into specific tasks |
| Sprint Board | Assignment Lists (ICS-204) | Individual task assignments and tracking |
| Daily Standup | Operations Briefing | Daily coordination and status |
| Sprint Review | After Action Review | Evaluate what was accomplished |
| Sprint Retrospective | Lessons Learned Session | Process improvement discussion |
Both systems organize around short cycles, clear roles, and transparent communication. Both emphasize adaptation over rigid planning.
Three psychological experiments help explain why SCRUM’s specific artifacts and methods are effective:
Glucksberg’s research shows how pressure stifles creative work. A well-planned sprint is as much about what you WON’T work on as what you will. Removing that infinite amount of work decreases pressure:
Ross’s research showed that specificity, direction, and personalization had dramatically more impact than peer assessments of likelihood to complete. This justifies SCRUM’s sprint board and task breakdown:
Ariely’s research showed that people want to be seen, and that failing to review someone’s work is nearly as bad as shredding their work literally right in front of their face. This demonstrates why the Sprint Review is critical:
Whether coordinating disaster response or delivering software, high-performing teams follow similar patterns: short feedback cycles, transparent progress tracking, and regular adaptation.
SCRUM didn’t invent these principles—it codified them into a repeatable framework. The evidence suggests these patterns work wherever teams need to deliver results under uncertainty.
