I think failing to set Sprint Goal is one of the core issues that leads to where we are. I'd quote Maarten "Sprint Goal is the beating heart of a Scrum Team"
I love the football analogy, and it's spot on. Universal scrum adoption is killing teams. My main issue now is how difficult it is to change and move away from scrum at a company as large as the one I work at now. Even with data and evidence proving how much money we lose daily through our arcane process, anything other than scrum still seems inconceivable to upper management.
Thanks for another thoughtful post David, your content resonates with me, truly.
Agree and disagree. The world of dedicated scrum masters, agile coaches, expensive certifications and dogmatic belief in what a scrum.org course said was the "right way of doing it" will die, and should die.
Scrum as a lightweight methodology that helps teams define what to work on over a specific period of time? That's not going away.
It just potentially need to be rebranded to remove the negative connotations that consultants have brought upon it. Product and engineering leaders who think for themselves and can make the necessary adaptations for their team (as they would with any framework) can take back control.
The immutable Scrum is going away, whether we like or not. Just look how fast the uncover waterfall agent is gaining market. SAFe gives what companies want, which isn't about agile, but something they are getting right. And I don't like it.
I see a time to simplify it instead of complicating it.
Well, a) Scrum is and was designed as a team level method, it provides nothing beyond that. b) It has a precondition: a team with (close to) zero dependencies. And c) It was designed for cases, where one has high uncertainty about what is to be achieved. These 3 boil down to rather small'ish, greenfield new product development. I've seen Scrum applied in many cases, where at least one of the three was not given, ignored and/or not acted upon. Hence it most likely fails.
Thanks David, it resonates a lot. As long as people still think scrum is something for the team to do ( in the existing environment ), in that case it will be impossible to do well in my opinion. It is to the company leadership in the first place to create the environment to make scrum possible for the teams. Indeed a complete other mindset. Existing structures must be refactored. Very difficult but big improvements cannot come without extensive but rewarding efforts. If scrum does not work, Scrum is not to blame, it only shows how stiff the organisation still is. If this mindset change can happen, I am confident, the future of scrum will still be bright! It is a slow learning path where we all are still in the very beginning I am afraid.
This is very insightful, David. I share your opinion and would like to suggest agility to the list of arguments, as written here: https://www.leadinginproduct.com/p/scrum-will-die
I wonder if Maarten also shares this point of view?
Thanks Benefikt.
Maarten and I agree on many things and sometimes share a different perspective. I'd believe on this one we're quite aligned.
That's good to hear. Some say he will talk a bit about sprint goals. But I get that that is not your point in this post.
I think failing to set Sprint Goal is one of the core issues that leads to where we are. I'd quote Maarten "Sprint Goal is the beating heart of a Scrum Team"
I love the football analogy, and it's spot on. Universal scrum adoption is killing teams. My main issue now is how difficult it is to change and move away from scrum at a company as large as the one I work at now. Even with data and evidence proving how much money we lose daily through our arcane process, anything other than scrum still seems inconceivable to upper management.
Thanks for another thoughtful post David, your content resonates with me, truly.
-JJ
Glad you enjoyed this one JJ
Agree and disagree. The world of dedicated scrum masters, agile coaches, expensive certifications and dogmatic belief in what a scrum.org course said was the "right way of doing it" will die, and should die.
Scrum as a lightweight methodology that helps teams define what to work on over a specific period of time? That's not going away.
It just potentially need to be rebranded to remove the negative connotations that consultants have brought upon it. Product and engineering leaders who think for themselves and can make the necessary adaptations for their team (as they would with any framework) can take back control.
The immutable Scrum is going away, whether we like or not. Just look how fast the uncover waterfall agent is gaining market. SAFe gives what companies want, which isn't about agile, but something they are getting right. And I don't like it.
I see a time to simplify it instead of complicating it.
Well, a) Scrum is and was designed as a team level method, it provides nothing beyond that. b) It has a precondition: a team with (close to) zero dependencies. And c) It was designed for cases, where one has high uncertainty about what is to be achieved. These 3 boil down to rather small'ish, greenfield new product development. I've seen Scrum applied in many cases, where at least one of the three was not given, ignored and/or not acted upon. Hence it most likely fails.
An excellent text David!
Glad you like this one.
Thanks David, it resonates a lot. As long as people still think scrum is something for the team to do ( in the existing environment ), in that case it will be impossible to do well in my opinion. It is to the company leadership in the first place to create the environment to make scrum possible for the teams. Indeed a complete other mindset. Existing structures must be refactored. Very difficult but big improvements cannot come without extensive but rewarding efforts. If scrum does not work, Scrum is not to blame, it only shows how stiff the organisation still is. If this mindset change can happen, I am confident, the future of scrum will still be bright! It is a slow learning path where we all are still in the very beginning I am afraid.