Re: Roll Your Own Agile?

On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 5:10 PM, Eric Gunnerson [email protected]
[SCRUMDEVELOPMENT] <[email protected]> wrote:

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> I agree with that; under my definition you have to be incremental and
> experimental or you aren’t agile.
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That is a reasonable thing to include in the definition. It is hinted at
multiple times (some more explicit than others) in the principles of the
Agile Manifesto.


> I’ve become a bit less excited about defined methodologies as a starting
> point, mostly because the adoption is neither incremental and experimental.
> I see a lot of what I call “frozen scrum” implementations; the team adopted
> scrum (or, more typically, scrum with some variations based on what
> management wants) as a plug-and-play replacement for their current process,
> and then they just stick with that exact process. I’ve been wondering that
> if you try to adopt your way in incrementally, you will end up with better
> understanding of individual practices and perhaps you end up with a culture
> that at least has some support for experimentation.
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I don’t have any problem with using a defined method as a starting point.
Although, I don’t think it is strictly necessary. I do have a problem when
a defined method is dictated and strictly controlled by the PMO, which is
the way a lot of folks seem to go (Many of the SAFE crowd, for example.)

I know that Ken Schwaber and other prominent members of the Scrum community
feel that you should start with Scrum exactly as it is defined and then use
it as a framework from which to inspect and adapt. The XP approach of
starting with a lot of technical discipline and few other rules is better
suited to my personal style, but Scrum is still a really, really effective
starting point in many contexts (and not in others…)