Scrum is like a religion. Religion has values and rituals. Rituals support values. Without values, rituals are meaningless. Scrum sucks because we follow its rituals (Daily Scrum, Sprint Reviews etc.) without living the values (Focus, Courage, Openness, Commitment and Respect) and the three pillars of Scrum (Transparency, Inspections and Adaptation).
If the basic Scrum values are not ingrained in our organisation’s DNA then we are merely following Scrum rituals like well-trained dogs.
Hence, Scrum (or any other Agile frameworks) must be understood by our leadership team. I believe the value-add for any framework is in its philosophy and not so much in its rules and tools. The rules and tools will change with time but the underlying philosophy will not. The implementation of these frameworks must be supported and implemented top-bottom. The success is not in merely following Scrum rules. Instead, changing the organisation so that rules are followed with underlying values. For example, we cannot have a Development Team, if our people are tied to their titles (Senior Developer, Principal Architect) and related egos. Similarly, leadership needs to ensure if people are feeling safe to be transparent? You get the point….
It is for this reason; I think authors of ‘The Scrum Guide‘ mentioned, “Scrum is difficult to master”!
