Common misconceptions about scrum

There has to be a definition of Ready

Definition of Ready is mentioned zero times in the scrum guide. That doesn’t mean it can’t be applied, but it is to be approached with caution. A Definition of Ready can be beneficial to some teams, but for others it can create paralysis around getting started with stories that are lacking details or requirements.

A sprint is just a place to put as much work as we can finish in a fortnight

A sprint is a time-boxed container which contains the sprint events and an increment of value (to someone who matters). Trying to cram things into a sprint, because there is a gantt chart somewhere that requires a certain feature on that date, is not how Scrum works.

You can skip retros unless everyone wants one

Retros are the beating heart of agile. The pillars of empiricism in scrum are transparency, inspection and adaptation. Retros embody the inspection and adaptation and if done well, encourage openness. Most retros are run poorly and follow a dry boring structure where people are just nodding until it’s over.

The sprint goal doesn’t have to be discussed

The sprint goal should be shining in bright lights over your scrum board or wherever you congregate for daily scrums. It should be discussed on a daily basis and your team should know where they stand on the journey of meeting that sprint goal. Is the sprint goal in danger or obsolete? Discuss it. Are we on track to meet the sprint goal? Celebrate it. Are we confused about what the sprint goal covers in terms of scope? Debate it.

Sprints have to be a fixed length even if the goal can’t be met

According to the Scrum guide, a sprint should have a fixed length and should be less than 1 month. Most companies choose a 2 week sprint, which is reasonable. The problem is that the work in the sprint often looks random and does not deliver a clear increment of value. It’s filled with odds and sods, and stories that have sat with someone for sprints because they’re blocked. Setting stretch goals is one thing, but if your sprint goals are constantly never met, and work is moving over into the next sprint, there’s an issue. If anything, what would be better is smaller sprint goals that are more likely to be met and have the PO close the sprint early.

Sprint 0 is for elaboration and requirements gathering

If your team has a sprint 0 for requirements gathering, you’re getting into w-agile territory. Scrum is about getting stuck into difficult problems early as a group of self managing people. It’s an antidote to waterfall development’s woes, which would do most requirements gathering upfront.

There are “Best Practices” In scrum

Scrum is a framework for complicated frameworks. Complicated in this sense, describes challenges that have known unknowns, things that we know we don’t know. For complicated work, we can’t say that there are best practices, simply because we don’t know if there are better ways of doing things. As scrum is a framework that leans into empiricism, “good practices” are practices that work well for the scrum team.