Expanding on that, scrum is a religion. Like many/most religions, it requires faith, and that a lack of faith is singularly responsible for any failure of said belief/religion to deliver its promises.
I agree completely about scrum being a religion and lack of faith and all that, and I can't stand the "but that wasn't real scrum" automatic response that most of the defenders make.
But the GP point is valid. not every iteration can be blamed on "scrum" anymore than anything bad that happens in life can be blamed on Satan. If people want it to fail, they can make it fail.
But that said, to slightly counter my own point: I think that demonstrates a weakness with Scrum. If people following the system (even malicous compliance) can make it fail, then the system is flawed. It obviously sucks for those people or they wouldn't have a bad attitude about it. For example, Scrum likes to pretend that all engineers are fungible, but this is clearly wrong and a big problem with the system.
But the GP point is valid. not every iteration can be blamed on "scrum" anymore than anything bad that happens in life can be blamed on Satan. If people want it to fail, they can make it fail.
But that said, to slightly counter my own point: I think that demonstrates a weakness with Scrum. If people following the system (even malicous compliance) can make it fail, then the system is flawed. It obviously sucks for those people or they wouldn't have a bad attitude about it. For example, Scrum likes to pretend that all engineers are fungible, but this is clearly wrong and a big problem with the system.