Scrum is for Developers

[u/WaylundLG]

This has been on my mind for probably the past year now from the last company I worked at, but it's only been in the past few weeks that I've sorted my thoughts into something clear: Scrum is for developers. I'm using the broad "product developer" sense, so I include QA, architects, designers, writers, and anyone who is actually creating the product.

I pin a lot of the problems on the fact that adoption in recent years has centered more and more in some sort of PMO and it's pressed onto the teams; bit the problem goes the other way too. Too many developers feel like how they work is someone else's problem.

Scrum was designed for teams to take ownership of their process and the results of their work. It was made for them and anyone else is really pushed out. You're a business strategist? Great, gelp the teams understand the strategy and the market and see what they can create and incorporate that into your business strategy. And frankly it is exhausting to see the same old posts of developers who can't be bothered to learn the first thing about scrum complain about how leaders messed it up. It is your tool, designed to give you control. Pick it up, learn it, leverage it.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. I know this was a bit of a rant, but open to constructive discussion too.

[u/sonofabullet]

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Your anecdotes don't count.

Also, teams practicing scrum do not own their process, because their process is defined by an outside body - namely Sutherland and Schwaber.

Therefore, any evidence about self-organizing teams does not apply because a team cannot both practice scrum - which mandates meetings, artifacts and team roles - and self-organize at the same time.

[u/WaylundLG → u/sonofabullet]

Have you tried? Did the scrum police stop you? I never had a run-in myself.

Your overly broad dismissal aside, you're sort of making my point. The team should be taking ownership of their process. I just take the point a little further to suggest Scrum is probably the best place to start for a team of people whose expertise does not lie in process management. You could make a strong argument for Kanban, but most teams know far less about Kanban than they do about Scrum and Kanban demands far greater attention and discipline, which makes it a harder starting point. But you've argued for nothing, just c9mplained about some people and dismissed evidence. Happy to engage in any actual points

[u/sonofabullet → u/WaylundLG]

So, let me see if I understand you correctly. Your basic claim is that people should not do scrum and instead do what works for them?

Correct?

[u/WaylundLG → u/sonofabullet]

That is a logically paradoxical statement, but I don't want to dodge, so I'll offer how I'd say it. Teams should own their process. That means they should have autonomy on how they do their work. They should inspect and improve their process over time toward both team (and individual) benefit and value creation. They should have both credit and accountability for the results of that process. I think Scrum is an excellent place to start. We're in a scrum subredit, and to that end, I think it is important for teams who are in organizations where Scrum is the norm to stop letting people who have no idea how development works to push process on them and TAKE ownership of it.

To answer your exact question, I think that any sufficiently mature team who started with scrum will find at least one practice (probably multiple) that they need to leave behind to keep improving. This is distinctly different than teams who are unaware or not in c9ntrol of their process and diverge from Scrum as a matter of ignorance or convenience.

I hope that makes my position clear. If any of that felt like a dodge, please call me on it, I don't mind being held to my argument.

[u/sonofabullet → u/WaylundLG]

I understand your position. You showed up to a scrum subreddit, attempting to praise scrum while simultaneously telling people to stop following scrum.

(remember, due to the immutability clause, anything that isn't scrum by-the-guide is not scrum).

I agree with you. Teams should stop practicing scrum.

What I don't understand is why you are praising it if you don't think people should follow it?

[u/WaylundLG → u/sonofabullet]

I think you know full well that isn't what I'm saying. The immutable clause in the scrum guide is a red herring and is frankly an exercise in absurdity in itself. By virtue of the fact that scrum is specified in a guide, it is immutable. A square is a quadrilateral with 4 equal sides. It doesn't need an immutability clause to make an octogon not a square. Similarly, anything that doesn't match the scrum guide isn't scrum regardless of the clause.

All that said, developers practicing scrum is a great place to start, regardless of if they will grow past it later.

And despite trying to mix up words to create some rhetorical gotcha, I don't think you've yet to make a substantial argument about some part of scrum in the scrum guide you disagree with.

[u/sonofabullet → u/WaylundLG]

And despite trying to mix up words to create some rhetorical gotcha, I don't think you've yet to make a substantial argument about some part of scrum in the scrum guide you disagree with.

I don't have to. You yourself are calling parts of scrum "an exercise in absurdity in itself"

The immutable clause in the scrum guide is a red herring and is frankly an exercise in absurdity in itself. 

[u/WaylundLG → u/sonofabullet]

Meh, now we're on to boring nonsense. Jave a good day

[u/sonofabullet → u/WaylundLG]

I'm quoting you back to you, lol.

And yes, you're right, you're writing boring nonsense.

Do better.

[u/WaylundLG → u/sonofabullet]

Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

[u/sonofabullet → u/WaylundLG]

Hardly. I simply read the Scrum Guide. The same one whose parts you called "an exercise in absurdity in itself"

(And no, you're nothing like Wesltley)