Hi Bob :)

I agree with nearly all of your comments as things not in Scrum, though...
wouldn't call it shortcomings and instead point out that Scrum by itself needs
to be supported by other practices.

Though am surprised by one.

> 6. Scrum carries an anti-management undercurrent that is counter-productive.
Scrum over-emphasizes the role of the team as self-managing. Self-organizing and
self-managing teams are a good thing. But there is a limit to how much a team
can self-X. Teams still need to be managed by someone who is responsible to the
business. Scrum does not describe this with enough balance.

How/where do you find this undercurrent?

I think one struggle that many people have when adopting Scrum is to deal with
the changing role of management. Self-managing teams does push responsibility
down to teams and therefore the role of management will change. Too often,
management thinks of Scrum as a framework that "they" do without needing to
change (instead of ordering..." you do scrum!" which means its already likely to
fail).

I don't think this is unique to Scrum, if you dive into the self-management team
history and literature then the change in the role of management is a common
topic. However, like any other role, when told that the current activities are
not needed as such anymore, its easy to interpret that as being "anti".

Where, within Scrum, do you feel it is "described without balance" ?

Tnx!

Bas


>
> 7. Automated Testing. Although this could be considered a derivative of point
1, I thought it worth calling out as a separate point because it is so
fundamental. Scrum doesn't mention this, yet it is the foundation of every agile
effort. Agile teams work in short cycles because feedback only works well in
short cycles. But short cycles aren't enough. You also need objective
measurement of progress. The most reliable way to know how much a team has
gotten done is to run automated tests and count the tests that pass.
>
> 8. Multiple teams. Scrum has little to say about the coordination of multiple
teams. This is not a failing unique to scrum. Agile itself is virtually silent
on this issue. Scrum talked about the vague notion of a "Scrum of Scrums" but
that idea really hasn't played out all that well. Scrum-in-the-large remains in
the domain of certain consultants who claim to have an answer. There is no real
consensus on the issue.
>
> > Things that come to mind are that
> > Scrum is not well suited to projects that have well understood
> > tasks/deadines/deliverables like manufacturing, and is not well suited to
> > organizations that don't support the Scrum ideals, roles and
> > responsibilities. Also I know there is definitely tension between UX
> > designers and Scrum (e.g. breaking down epics into micro stories and losing
> > the vision of what has to be delivered - not spending months on BUFD), and I
> > have found the practices of Jeff Patton
> > http://www.agileproductdesign.com/blog/ to help mitigate that.
> >
> > Anything else come to mind?
> >
> > From my perspective the majority of Scrum's inherit shortcomings mostly
> > revolve around how well the organization support's scrum and implements it.
> > e.g. if the company doesn't support the resources and process necessary to
> > properly fufill and hold accountable the PO roll, SM roll, things are going
> > to go south.
> >
> > Background, I have been practicing Scrum for several years at a couple of
> > companies and we seem to have a well functioning scrum here, but my CEO is
> > more familiar with waterfall from his previous companies. He says he has no
> > preconceived notions of what Scrum's shortcomings are, but just wants me to
> > speak to them in order to make sure we are mitigating them appropriately. I
> > don't want to just come back to him with a list of Scrum Smells (I will do
> > that but want more from this group if possible).
>
> ----
> Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob) | email: unclebob@...
> Object Mentor Inc. | blog: blog.objectmentor.com
> The Agile Transition Experts | web: www.objectmentor.com
> 800-338-6716 | twitter: unclebobmartin
>
>