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A long time ago, I hired a scrum master. Two months later, I fired the scrum master, and exorcised scrum from my company. It was bureaucratic, it siloed people

A long time ago, I hired a scrum master. Two months later, I fired the scrum master, and exorcised scrum from my company. It was bureaucratic, it siloed people (you are front end, and you will only work on front end) turned simple decisions into decision by committee designed to reduce risk to the committee members, favored people who had little knowledge in decision making and put 10 out of 10 client projects behind schedule. I've never really looked at scrum again...

epicureanideal 4y ago
> you are front end, and you will only work on front end That is something outside the scope of scrum. Whoever you hired may have called that scrum, but it seems they were bringing in unrelated processes. > turned simple decisions into decision by committee Scrum isn't a decision-making framework either.
- eropple 4y ago
  > Whoever you hired may have called that scrum, but it seems they were bringing in unrelated processes. This is both true and not exculpatory, IME. I've often referred to/heard this referred to as "Scrum-but", i.e. "Scrum, but X", and it's pretty true in my experience that Scrum legitimizes and encourages Scrum-but. There are places where Scrum is legitimately useful (as a way for managing stakeholders when dealing with war-room problems where the entire implementation team is of roughly equivalent competency and is literally sitting around a table), but beyond that, the first hint of Scrum-but and the boat's taking on water.
- baobabKoodaa 4y ago
  > Whoever you hired may have called that scrum, but it seems they were bringing in unrelated processes. Every time a Scrum project goes badly, any criticism attributed to Scrum is deflected with this no true scottsman argument. News flash: nobody is doing the actual, literal version of Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. Nobody. So if you use this argument to deflect criticisms of Scrum, be consistent & don't attribute any success stories to Scrum either.
- 0des 4y ago
  Why is it that every time something goes wrong with scrum in an org, it's not a response that all orgs are different, but something that indicates this wasn't true scrum?
gedy 4y ago
> It was bureaucratic, it siloed people (you are front end, and you will only work on front end) Not sure where Scrum says that. In fact I remember it being the inverse. Maybe you just had a bad hire.
BobLaw 4y ago
Scrum master here (amongst other things). Just want to point out that nothing mentioned in your comment is "Scrum". Though they can certainly be characteristics of terrible attempts at implementations of scrum and other methodologies. The first thing to do when considering scrum is really understanding the problem to be fixed or process to be potentially improved and if the best approach is an Agile methodology (Not just Scrum, it isn't the only thing out there and isn't always the best solution). Then only adding as much as you need. Scrum really shouldn't be adding any bureaucracy. Not any more than a sufficiently complex project would already have inherently. In fact just the opposite, it should cut down on bureaucracy and make teams more (drumroll) agile. Which is the whole point of self-managing teams. Sounds like this guy did a hacky job while calling it Scrum, and was not at all the right hire for your situation.
- slotrans 4y ago
  No True Scotsman
- RayFrankenstein 4y ago
  No True Scotsman.
- indymike 4y ago
  > Just want to point out that nothing mentioned in your comment is "Scrum". Oh, it was scrum, complete with an "Certified Advanced Scrum Master(tm)" certification. >Sounds like this guy did a hacky job while calling it Scrum, and was not at all the right hire for your situation I agree with this. It was the wrong hire, and the wrong way to manage our software development. It was terrible, and I'll never give scrum a second thought.
Foobar8568 4y ago
I left a team mainly because the developers wanted to create the user stories per technology layer, front-end, api, backend, DB basically. I fought, fought and fought, but nobody was listened. Not worth it but unrelated to scrum as many said.
synu 4y ago
Be careful, a Scum Master(TM) is bound to appear out of the woodwork and will find your lack of faith disturbing. Surely your lack of success can be attributed to a lack of believing hard enough.

epicureanideal 4y ago

> you are front end, and you will only work on front end That is something outside the scope of scrum. Whoever you hired may have called that scrum, but it seems they were bringing in unrelated processes. > turned simple decisions into decision by committee Scrum isn't a decision-making framework either.

eropple 4y ago
> Whoever you hired may have called that scrum, but it seems they were bringing in unrelated processes. This is both true and not exculpatory, IME. I've often referred to/heard this referred to as "Scrum-but", i.e. "Scrum, but X", and it's pretty true in my experience that Scrum legitimizes and encourages Scrum-but. There are places where Scrum is legitimately useful (as a way for managing stakeholders when dealing with war-room problems where the entire implementation team is of roughly equivalent competency and is literally sitting around a table), but beyond that, the first hint of Scrum-but and the boat's taking on water.
baobabKoodaa 4y ago
> Whoever you hired may have called that scrum, but it seems they were bringing in unrelated processes. Every time a Scrum project goes badly, any criticism attributed to Scrum is deflected with this no true scottsman argument. News flash: nobody is doing the actual, literal version of Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. Nobody. So if you use this argument to deflect criticisms of Scrum, be consistent & don't attribute any success stories to Scrum either.
0des 4y ago
Why is it that every time something goes wrong with scrum in an org, it's not a response that all orgs are different, but something that indicates this wasn't true scrum?

gedy 4y ago

> It was bureaucratic, it siloed people (you are front end, and you will only work on front end) Not sure where Scrum says that. In fact I remember it being the inverse. Maybe you just had a bad hire.

BobLaw 4y ago

Scrum master here (amongst other things). Just want to point out that nothing mentioned in your comment is "Scrum". Though they can certainly be characteristics of terrible attempts at implementations of scrum and other methodologies. The first thing to do when considering scrum is really understanding the problem to be fixed or process to be potentially improved and if the best approach is an Agile methodology (Not just Scrum, it isn't the only thing out there and isn't always the best solution). Then only adding as much as you need. Scrum really shouldn't be adding any bureaucracy. Not any more than a sufficiently complex project would already have inherently. In fact just the opposite, it should cut down on bureaucracy and make teams more (drumroll) agile. Which is the whole point of self-managing teams. Sounds like this guy did a hacky job while calling it Scrum, and was not at all the right hire for your situation.

slotrans 4y ago
No True Scotsman
RayFrankenstein 4y ago
No True Scotsman.
indymike 4y ago
> Just want to point out that nothing mentioned in your comment is "Scrum". Oh, it was scrum, complete with an "Certified Advanced Scrum Master(tm)" certification. >Sounds like this guy did a hacky job while calling it Scrum, and was not at all the right hire for your situation I agree with this. It was the wrong hire, and the wrong way to manage our software development. It was terrible, and I'll never give scrum a second thought.

Foobar8568 4y ago

I left a team mainly because the developers wanted to create the user stories per technology layer, front-end, api, backend, DB basically. I fought, fought and fought, but nobody was listened. Not worth it but unrelated to scrum as many said.

synu 4y ago

Be careful, a Scum Master(TM) is bound to appear out of the woodwork and will find your lack of faith disturbing. Surely your lack of success can be attributed to a lack of believing hard enough.