This was a fascinating discussion facilitated by Jeffrey at CITCON Amsterdam. Much talking with him followed, so I think I finally understand why he introduced this topic, and why so many people seemed to dislike Scrum.
This was a typical discussion where antis are much more vocal that pros. When Jeffrey asked who thought Scrum was evil, maybe 12 raised their hands. Only 3 or 4 (including me) thought that Scrum was NOT evil. The majority stayed silent.
Most of the session was spent listing arguments pro and anti Scrum. You could say it was lively ;-)
“Scrum is evil because…” (I am not saying that I agree with all of them…)
“Scrum is good because…” (I am generally OK with them)
The first conclusion of the session to me was that the people against Scrum were mostly complaining about the fact that some projects were failing with Scrum.
Further, I feel that this reveals that they are in a post-agile mindset, which could be more prevalent in the US/UK (maybe the Netherlands, too?) than in France where Agile still faces an uphill battle.
Another thing is that, when you look at it, the people were really complaining about its success. After all, many of these arguments (pyramid scheme, some people feeling it solves all problems) were the very reasons Scrum was successful.
As Jeffrey pointed out during the session, it meant that, as per described in Crossing The Chasm, we are simply moving from the ‘enthusiasts’ stage to the ‘early adopters’. Many more people are now using Scrum, and its message is bound to be altered somewhat.
Jeffrey further pointed that, since it seems that 80% of projects fail now that many are using Scrum, just as there were 80% of projects that failed before, it simply means that 80% of the population is just not very competent. It has little to do with the methodology. This is also what Alistair Cockburn meant when he mentioned that “Process is a second-order effect”.
So, my undertanding is that Jeffrey’s goal is to change people and to use tools such as psychology to do so.
I am more nuanced, maybe because I am living in a country were Agile is still not being widely accepted. After all, this is all a short-term vs. long-term thing. Having a manager doing Command & Control was very short term. Agile (and Scrum) is medium term: you are providing a tool for people to get better in the medium term, if they are competent enough. Changing people is much longer-term thing. It might take years, generations, or may not ever happen.
For me, Scrum still seems to be providing those medium-term benefits, at least for now, in my environment. When it won’t be the case anymore, I might bash it like everyone else does.
Update (07/10/08): changed title from “Scrum is evil!” to “Is Scrum Evil?”
Thanks for the write-up Eric!
Just to be clear the session was a question not a declaration: “Is Scrum Evil?”
I found it really interesting to hear the people on both sides and I enjoyed our continued conversation over dinner as well.
Reading the feedback forms it was on a few as their least favorite session and but many more as their favorite, so apparently we weren’t the only ones to enjoy the discussion.
Comment by Jeffrey Fredrick — October 7, 2008 @ 7:20 pm
@Jeffrey well, I thought that a title that said “Scrum Is Evil!” might catch the eye better ;-) Still, since you pointed it out, I changed it to the original title of the session
Comment by Eric Lefevre-Ardant — October 7, 2008 @ 7:46 pm
Oh I wasn’t worried about your title, I just didn’t want people to be confused about the session title and think I came with an axe to grind! :)
Comment by Jeffrey Fredrick — October 7, 2008 @ 10:16 pm
The sessions was very polarizing and of course had a provoking title. As you said, most people stayed silent. Don’t think because they did’t have anything to say. There was one comment close to the end, which I think represented some of the silent group. I think many of the early adopters have moved on or are looking for new directions.
Comment by Harald Walker — October 8, 2008 @ 9:19 am
We use Agile technology and reading all this makes me feel that I really missed attending the conference in general and this session in particular
Comment by HARSHVIR SINGH — October 12, 2008 @ 7:10 pm
Hi Eric, Sounds like that was a very interesting discussion. One comment: Scrum isn’t “iterative waterfall” because it doesn’t prescribe any particular way for the team to work within each sprint; that is left up to the team to decide. Some teams run their sprints like little waterfalls, but there’s nothing in Scrum that requires it.
Comment by Dave Nicolette — October 15, 2008 @ 3:35 pm
[...] At least it would explain why many people now start to think that Scrum Is Evil. [...]
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[...] It’s startling to see how much momentum has been gathering around Lean Software Development and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that at the same time may people seem to be falling out of love with Scrum. [...]
Pingback by rob bowley » Blog Archive » Lean is the new Scrum, and it will fail for the same reasons — November 15, 2008 @ 10:26 am
[...] is getting a real bashing at the moment as you can see here and here and I think it could do with some [...]
Pingback by rob bowley - adventures in software development » Blog Archive » the state of scrum (it’s better than you think) — November 16, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
Thanks for taking the effort for this post. Nice summary.
Comment by Gishu — December 8, 2008 @ 9:24 am
[...] explique que cette session est librement inspirée de la session “Is Scrum Evil” animé par Jeffrey Frerick. Elle sera rejouée en septembre à la conférence CITCON 2009 à [...]
Pingback by Le Touilleur Express » XP Day France 2009, Scrum est-il dangereux ? — May 29, 2009 @ 10:51 pm
[...] my notes from the session at CITCON Amsterdam 2008 [...]
Pingback by “Is Scrum Evil?” Beyond our session at XP Day Paris « Eric Lefevre-Ardant on Java & Agile — June 2, 2009 @ 12:15 pm