Carl Bruiners Agile / IT Development Consultant

SCRUM in name, not in nature

A growing concern of mine is that so many companies have poorly implemented SCRUM. The kind of issues I've encountered are;

• Sprint lengths constantly growing because the Sprint backlog has not been completed on time
• Sprint backlogs being treated as a product backlog - with the Sprint length being set to complete all of the backlog (mini-waterfall)
• Prioritisation of items within the Sprint Backlog, no team freedom to select from the Sprint backlog
• Lack of protection for the SCRUM team

There appears to be a trend of using Agile / SCRUM in name but then to run a so called SPRINT more like a mini-waterfall.

The most worrying trend is that the issues listed above normally originate either from the 'SCRUM' expert who implemented SCRUM (and therefore also their bad habits) or from very senior people in the business (who the lesser beings won't question).
Like many PRINCE2 Project Managers, who have problems with PINO (Prince in name only), we as SCRUMMER's must now also face the reality that allot of SCRUM implementations are poor, and that there are many SCRUM implementations that are;

• 'SCRUM in name, not in nature'.

Like our fellow PRINCE2er's, we as SCRUM masters must educate all levels of the business, and sometimes that can prove hard, particularly with more senior management, but demonstrate sucessfully why we do have certain processes (like fixed length SPRINT iterations) in place to ensure that they, the business, gain the most benefit from SCRUM.