About Scrum

Should we Implement Scrum?

Friday, January 23 2009 - scrum, agile

Since the release of the Scrum in 10 Minutes video, I've received hundreds of emails in praise of the video and sometimes the sender will also ask a few Scrum related questions. I have decided to start answering some of the more common questions in the AboutScrum blog.

Today I received the fourth or fifth occurance of this question:

Does Scrum make sense for us?

Usually, the question is accompanied by a series of conditions or excuses as to why the sender of the email thinks Scrum might not apply in their case. These excuses can include:

• We are a new team
• We are distributed around the city, state, country or globe
• We don't have a lot of project management experience
• Management is resistant to the idea of Scrum
• [Fill in the Blank]

To me, the reasons given as to why Scrum might not apply in these cases are far fetched. Never have I been asked if a team should use "Scrum" as opposed to "XP" or some other development methodology. The question is generally asked as though it's "Scrum" vs. "Nothing" and nothing seems to have the edge.

So my response is always the same:

Instead of asking whether or not it makes sense to use Scrum as opposed to using nothing, ask yourself these questions:

1. Should we  make a list of things we want to get done?
2. Should we try to come up with rough estimates of how much time each of those items will take?
3. Should we try to prioritize our list so we get the most important items done first?
4. Should we try and track the progress of each item assigned to team members?

Of course, the response to most of these questions is "DUH!" It's nearly impossible to do anything without at least doing the above tasks and if you are doing the above tasks, you are practically doing Scrum. If it makes you feel better, call it something else, like "Common Sense." Referring to it as "Common Sense" doesn't seem like it will have a steep learning curve.