How to fail with Scrum?
How to fail with Scrum?
Scrum is a form of management that triggers a radical change and promises a productivity increase of 8-10 times with the same radicality. In this sense, it has been used intensively in many areas, especially in software for 20 years. With Scrum, we live, see, read or hear a lot of success stories.
Of course, in the light of all these, we wonder if it is impossible to fail with Scrum. It’s actually possible. How? Just do some of the following:
- Begin to change without understanding and internalizing the Agile perspective and the basics of Scrum.
- Stretch some of the few rules of Scrum or change them on your own.
- Regard Scrum as a magic wand that will fix everything at once.
- Try to hide your problems when they are visible with the transparency provided by Scrum.
- Ignore quality, avoid engineering practices.
- Give importance to individuality and individual heroes rather than team play.
- Resist to development as an individual and/or team (everyone says they are open to change and development, but what have you changed in your life most recently, in which area have you improved yourself? (The answers you can or cannot give to that question may enlighten you).
- Continue to say I am/we are perfect.
- Never try something new, do not teach an old dog new tricks.
- Do not use metrics and analyze data; you are already perfect.
- Stay as far away from your customer as possible, which they usually don’t know much. You can induce them into your software when you finish the project, do not take their whims in the process.
Like every method, Scrum is a system based on people and therefore its success depends on us. It is a management approach that is simple but requires discipline and triggers cultural change. So, you need to internalize the underlying values of Scrum and follow its rules with discipline without regarding Scrum as a magic wand.
Increase transparency and adopt experimentality, success will surely come with a team willing to improve.
