I’ve been a follower of Scrum ever since I first heard Ken Schwaber present the subject at an XP user group meeting in Pasadena in ’04. Scrum has come a long way since then, boasting over 50,000 Certified ScrumMasters worldwide. Scrum is well beyond the innovator and early-adopter stages and firmly entrenched in the early-majority stage. People are no longer asking, “Will Scrum work?” but rather “How will Scrum work for me?”

Unfortunately, along with popularity comes dilution and permutation. Surrounding a core of solid, serious adopters lies a realm of half-serious adopters sometimes jokingly, but affectionately, referred to as “Scrum-buts.” You hear them say things like “We’re doing Scrum, but we’re not doing daily standup meetings,” or “We’re doing Scrum, but we can’t track velocity because the iteration work keeps getting interrupted with support calls.” Scrum purists would say that these people are missing the point of Scrum. That the full measure of benefit from Scrum cannot be realized by adopting it piecemeal.

I used to be that kind of a purist, but I’ve changed. Continue reading Scrumban = Scrum + Kanban →