Although Scrum was first used to describe Agile content in 1986 in the Harvard Business Review, the term originates from the internationally loved sport, rugby. In rugby, a “scrum” involves players huddling closely together with their heads down while trying to gain possession of the ball. Then, the players work together in order to achieve their shared goal: to get the ball across the line and score!
The original Harvard Business Review paper, written by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka and titled “The New Product Development Game“, introduces Scrum in the chapter “Moving the Scrum downfield.” Throughout the paper, the authors continue to point out which characteristics of a team help to move the Scrum downfield.
Original full article: https://hbr.org/1986/01/the-new-new-product-development-game