Steve Berczuk

Scrum is a fairly minimal process framework that you adapt to work best for your team. Sometimes, teams adopting Scrum attempt to extend the idea of adaptation and “adapt” the Scrum process so that it’s simply a veneer atop the existing (often traditional) process. Adaptation works best once the team has internalized the principles and values of the Scrum process. Gaining an understanding of a different way of working takes practice and experience.

A common example of premature adaptation during Scrum adoption is that a team will look at the Scrum events and decide that they won’t work for them. Sprint Planning meetings get shortened or don’t include the whole team and result in Sprint Backlogs that contain more work than what past experience has repeatedly shown the team can handle. Daily Scrum meetings become status meetings—or worse, other status meetings aren’t removed from the schedule. Sprint Review and Retrospective meetings are rushed or get skipped. In short, you might have events with the official names, but they’re not informed by Scrum values. This is a bad idea, as it will at best result in the team gaining no value from Scrum and at worst result in worse performance as the pretend or hybrid approach adds unnecessary overhead.

The reasons why this happens vary from organization to organization, but two factors almost always come into play. First, any change is hard and requires work and learning, and in times of stress, people easily revert to old, familiar behaviors. Also, Scrum is easy to learn but difficult to master. There is more to Scrum than simply organizing some of the Scrum events. Everyone on the team needs to be disciplined about making sure that they are doing what they can to help the process work well.

Adopt Scrum practices before you adapt them. The practices will help you understand and internalize the new way of working. Resist the temptation to customize Scrum until the team has a sense of how the practices add value and support Scrum principles. Follow Scrum “by the book” (literally—either the Scrum Guide, or if you want more guidance, one of the many excellent books on Scrum) for three to five Sprints, at least. And be certain to allow time for Sprint Retrospectives. Use the Retrospectives to explore how the process affected collaboration and delivery, thus providing an “a-ha” opportunity as people see the behaviors the Scrum framework enables.

If you truly believe that you understand Scrum values, feel free to adapt out of the box. Since Scrum is a very different way of working than most organizations are used to, most teams need practice to understand the value of the practices. While not essential to successful adoption, having a good baseline to adapt from is best.