Are there any ‘best practices’ in Scrum?
Exploring what the term ‘Best Practice’ mean in a Scrum Teams’ context
Uncertainty is a way of saying there are very few things that we can control. And it is how we embrace the uncertainty that leads to some of the greatest transformations seen in recent times.
The thirst for best practices has never quenched among us humans. In fact, this thirst has only gone worse with more complexity and uncertainty experienced at work.
Is that a wrong thing to look out for Best Practices? No, it isn’t if not with Scrum.
We are doing complex work and dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity with Scrum. The term Best practices can exist only when we exactly know what we need to create and the steps to follow to successfully do it.
“Scrum makes clear the relative efficacy of your product management and work techniques so that you can continuously improve the product, the team, and the working environment.” — The Scrum Guide
Teams embracing Scrum must uncover and find the suitable practices that might work best for them given the specific context in which they operate.
In fact, the Scrum Teams won’t even know or recognize it as a “best practice” until they inspect and adapt after some timeframe.
And what remains a Best Practice has to change helping not only the Scrum Team but also the Product and the environment in which they are getting built to continuously improve.
Over time, such adaptation becomes inevitable with changes coming from the market, technology, business, product, and even from the Scrum Team’s maturity and evolution.
“As technology, market, and environmental complexities and their interactions have rapidly increased, Scrum’s utility in dealing with complexity is proven daily.” — The Scrum Guide
Hence there are no Best Practices but many good practices in Scrum.
There is nothing wrong with looking out for knowledge and experience coming from other teams. However, blindly assuming that what worked for one Scrum Team will work for our Scrum Team is where the real challenge is.
We need to validate the rationale behind such practices even before trying to adapt them:
- What are the problems or opportunities the Scrum Team is trying to address through such practices?
- Are those practices helping the Scrum Team be more transparent and inspect and adapt?
- Why do the Scrum Team need such practices and how they can help in getting the desired outcomes?
If one of these questions above gets a ‘No’ response, then we need to figure out a way to change the practice to make it work better for our needs and expectations.
And by now, we have already crossed the rationale behind calling such practices the ‘Best’ for us.
Remembering the essence of Scrum brings us back to focus and stay clear with our intentions.
“The essence of Scrum is a small team of people. The individual team is highly flexible and adaptive. These strengths continue operating in single, several, many, and networks of teams that develop, release, operate and sustain the work and work products of thousands of people. “ — The Scrum Guide
Wrap up!
Now it is left all up to us to decide on where we want to focus and improve upon.
Are we going to take pride in standardizing the mechanics behind Scrum? Or take help from Scrum in pivoting quickly and respond to the business/market risks?
