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by mattmanser 2877 days ago
If you read the agile manifesto and then you look at scrum, it feels as if scrum has nothing to do with agile. It seems to breaks every rule.

Scrum is processes and tools over individuals and interactions, by its very nature.

Scrum is comprehensive documentation over working software, because you have to map everything out.

Scrum is contract negotiation over customer collaboration, by allowing management to effectively rule scrum, scrum masters are always management or reporting to management, so devolve into contract negotiation by proxy.

Scrum is following a plan over responding to change, again, by its very nature.

It's the most odd thing I've ever seen, that somehow scrum came out of agile and literally got it all backwards. There's even certifications on how to do scrum, which is utterly stupid when you read the 12 principles, some choice scrum oxymorons:

trust them to get the job done - nope, we don't trust you, follow these scrum rules you oiks

simplicity is essential - but we've got all these formal rules for you to follow

working software is the primary measure of progress - no, actually, how many sprints have been successfully completed?

the best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams - but we're not going to let you self organize, you must follow these scrum rules

1 comments

Scrum is all about implementing a system and then adapting it over time to fit your needs. It's all about having the team figure out for itself how to organize. It's not a rigid set of requirements. It's a set of suggestions about how to begin implementing the system, and then trusting the team to figure out what to adapt and what to cut.
That's not how it's presented in real life.

Read something like this:

https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile/scrum

All about what has to be done, with a formal role of scrum master.

Phrases like these brook no adaptability:

On each day of the sprint, all team members should attend a daily Scrum meeting, including the ScrumMaster and the product owner

on the first day of a sprint and during the planning meeting

Another activity in Scrum project management is the sprint retrospective at the end of each sprint. The whole team participates in this meeting

Management take Scrum as a set of rules to follow and then use it to micro-manage everyone. Scrum masters end up as middle managers. Daily stand-ups turn in to daily justify your worth.