Why “Scrum does not work here” is the wrong answer
Or: The Right Question To Ask
When interviewing for a new Scrum Master position, there’s a pattern in most companies I come into contact with. Usually, it starts out nice, with them wanting to know more about my profile, my experience, what I do, and who I am. But then I counter with some questions of my own. Team sizes, how many teams there are, roughly how work flows through the system, and finally if they have already adopted Scrum.
Secretly, I dread the answer to that question.
In 90% of the cases, the answer is some variation of “Yes, but we had to modify it to suit our needs.”
I usually ask why “just out of curiosity.”
And usually, the answer is “Scrum just did not work for us.”
I hope everyone knows Ron Jeffries’ great baseball analogy. That post was originally written to show why you shouldn’t change the principles of XP if you want to achieve the promised results. You can also easily apply that post to Scrum.
“Why,” I ask the recruiter, “did Scrum not work? I always thought it was pretty simple.”
“Oh, it’s a great framework for startups,” they usually say, with a weird emphasis on the word “startup”, and then: “but we are different. If we wanted Scrum to work here, we’d have to change everything.”
And that’s usually the issue, isn’t it? What most organizations overlook is that change is not a barrier towards Scrum, but rather the reward for doing Scrum.
By adopting Scrum, you’re actually adapting the mindset that you need to abandon an organizational structure that no longer serves you, does not generate value fast enough, and prevents you from gaining a competitive edge. And you’re going to need that edge in today’s market.
The Right Question To Ask is not “Does Scrum work for us?”
Instead, it is “Can we afford to not make Scrum work?”
Do you want to write for Serious Scrum or seriously discuss Scrum?
