Should Developers Love Scrum?
Scrum is here to help developers deliver value in a more effective and meaningful way. It’s here to make their lives easier. If it doesn’t feel like that, something is wrong.
Scrum is designed to help developers navigate the complexities of product development, ensuring they deliver value in a meaningful and efficient manner. Scrum simplifies the process when implemented correctly, fosters collaboration, and aligns the team around a shared goal. However, if developers are frustrated by Scrum or their scrum master, something may need to be fixed in implementing or understanding the framework. Exploring the root causes of this frustration is crucial to ensure scrum serves its intended purpose.
If Scrum feels wrong in its practice, it strongly indicates something isn't right. Scrum is not meant to be a rigid framework but a flexible tool that adapts to the team's needs. By addressing the root causes of frustration and ensuring that scrum principles are correctly understood and applied, teams can create an environment where developers accept scrum and genuinely appreciate its value in helping manage complexity and deliver great products.
If developers hate scrum or need to understand its intended purpose in their current work environment, the scrum team will likely make critical errors in implementing or understanding the framework.
1. Managing Complexity
One of the most significant challenges in product development is managing the complexity that naturally arises as products evolve.
To implement a scrum effectively, the team must address the challenges of managing complexity by taking intentional steps to ensure that every member understands the "why" behind their way of working.
Scrum is about helping teams navigate this complexity by embracing an empirical approach, creating the proper transparency, and inspection and adaptation opportunities for the team to deliver value.
However, a critical flaw some Scrum teams encounter is failing to ensure developers understand the "why" behind their work, decisions, and processes.
This lack of understanding can lead to several issues undermining Scrum's effectiveness and contributing to developer dissatisfaction.
2. Value Delivery
Scrum is a framework that helps teams deliver value by managing complexity. Breaking down the big assumptions made in product development into manageable, less risky chunks allows teams and organisations to improve value delivery.
It promotes a culture of collaboration, where team members work closely together, openly share information, and collectively solve problems. The sprint is a feedback loop that allows teams to adapt quickly to changes, ensuring the product remains aligned with customer needs and market demands.
Scrum fosters a team environment where everyone is aligned towards a common goal. It simplifies processes and promotes efficiency. However, if developers find Scrum frustrating or feel it needs to be more flexibly applied, it may indicate a misunderstanding or misapplication of the framework.
Addressing these issues and ensuring scrum principles are appropriately understood can transform frustration into appreciation, ultimately enhancing the team's ability to deliver value consistently.
3. Frameworks as Tools
Scrum, as a framework, is a versatile tool designed to manage and simplify the complexities of product development. It provides a structured approach that facilitates iterative progress through short, time-boxed intervals called sprints, which help teams maintain focus and deliver incremental value.
The framework encourages teams to regularly inspect and adapt their work, allowing flexibility and responsiveness to change. While Scrum offers a clear structure, it is intentionally lightweight and adaptable, making it an effective tool that can be tailored to meet the unique needs of any team or product.
This ensures that the focus remains on delivering value efficiently and effectively. The sprint is also a feedback loop on the tool itself and on the way that the developers are using it. If developers hate Scrum, that indicates something is wrong.
4. Servant Leaders
Servant leadership is a core principle in leading teams in the complex domain. It emphasises that leaders serve their teams by removing obstacles, facilitating collaboration, and fostering a supportive environment. In Scrum, the scrum master embodies this role and is accountable for guiding the team not by authority but through support, coaching, and empowerment.
When developers strongly dislike people in Agile roles, it is a clear signal that something fundamental is out of place in how servant leadership is practised. This discontent might be a perception of a lack of support, a misunderstanding of roles, or a feeling that Agile practices are being enforced rigidly rather than applied thoughtfully. It's crucial to pause and reflect on these frustrations, seek the root cause, and understand what the team truly needs.
Servant leadership builds trust and creates an environment where developers feel valued and motivated. If this isn't happening, it's essential to reassess and realign Agile practices to ensure they genuinely support the team's effectiveness and success.
5. Misuse of Practices
The misuse of agile practices occurs when popular practices are applied rigidly and superficially rather than embracing the core values and principles upon which they were built. One common manifestation is the misuse of story points as a tool for controlling developers rather than fostering understanding and improvement. While more teams use Flow Metrics for better forecasting, story points are, somewhat inexplicably, still popular today.
Story points are intended to help teams estimate the effort and complexity of work relatively, enabling better planning and forecasting.
However, when story points are used to measure individual performance or enforce productivity quotas, they become a tool for micromanagement, undermining the trust and the team’s ability to self-manage. This demotivates developers and breeds a culture of fear and mistrust.
The focus shifts from delivering value to simply checking boxes, leading to a loss of creativity, collaboration, and team morale. To truly harness the benefits of any Agile practice, it's essential to respect its intent and use the appropriate tools to support, not control, the team's work.
6. Mechanical Scrum - Events
Mechanical Scrum occurs when Scrum events are conducted without a genuine understanding of their purpose, leading to routine and meaningless sessions. Each Scrum event serves a specific purpose aimed at promoting collaboration, transparency, and continuous improvement. However, when these events are facilitated just for adherence to the process, without clear goals and engagement from the team, they become full rituals.
For example, a Daily Scrum should be a quick, focused meeting where the team aligns on their progress and identifies obstacles. Still, its value could be improved if it becomes a monotonous status update or a time for managerial oversight. When they are reduced to a routine with little input or action, the opportunity for growth and learning is missed.
When teams go through the motions of these events without understanding their intent, Scrum becomes a box-ticking exercise rather than a framework for delivering value. To avoid Mechanical Scrum, it's crucial to facilitate events with intention, ensuring that each serves its intended purpose of enhancing team collaboration and effectiveness.
7. Product Development and Management
Product development and management are inherently complex and unpredictable processes. They involve navigating evolving customer needs, technological advancements, and market dynamics, all of which can change rapidly. This is why an empirical approach is essential, as emphasised in Scrum.
Empiricism relies on observation, experience, and evidence-based decision-making, allowing teams to adapt and refine their products based on real-world feedback rather than assumptions. By iterating and inspecting regularly, teams can quickly learn what works and what doesn't, ensuring they continuously deliver value to customers.
However, this empirical approach can only succeed with solid product ownership within the team. A dedicated Product Owner is crucial for maintaining a clear vision, ordering the backlog based on customer needs, and making quick decisions. When a team needs product ownership, everyone is accountable for aligning the product with its business objectives and stakeholders. No single person is, which leads to misaligned priorities, slower decision-making, and a disconnect between what is being built and what the customer needs.
With a clear product owner driving the vision and adapting to empirical findings, the team can deliver meaningful and valuable outcomes, defeating the purpose of adopting an empirical approach in the first place.
Conclusion
Listen to your developers:
If it feels wrong, most likely, some aspects of Scrum are misused or misinterpreted.
To fix this, start by checking the seven points mentioned above.
By ensuring developers understand the "why" behind their work, Scrum teams can manage complexity, improve decision-making, and create a more engaged and motivated team. This understanding is crucial for ensuring that Scrum serves its intended purpose of helping teams and organisations deliver value in a complex environment.