That’s a bold statement, given that Scrum is the development framework used in most companies in the world. It has tens, of not hundreds of millions of users. An entire fleet of trainers and coaches is available, forming a new industry just related to a framework.
Beyond its peak
But Scrum is beyond its peak. It is a framework that with diminish in importance and will eventually die.
Scrum is beyond its peak.
But wait, is Scrum not part of the new, agile way of working?
Well, no. Scrum originated in the 1980s, used in the 1990, described to the masses in 2001, and since then became more and more widely used. That means that Scrum is well-known for about 20 years now and your junior software engineer was not even born when Scrum took off! There is nothing new to Scrum by now.
Let’s not examine all the differences between Scrum as a framework and Agile as a philosophy.
But in today’s software world, Scrum is just too slow.
Engineers set up pipelines for Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment in the meantime. Changes can be applied weekly, daily, or even hourly. That actually happens in productive systems: Companies update their products (especially in the cloud) several times a day.
What good does a Sprint Review every other week do? Why would a Product Owner wait for two weeks until looking at a feature? Why would you plan a delay when something is potentially shippable at any point in time? Scrum is just too slow for today’s software world.
Why would a Product Owner wait for two weeks until looking at a feature?
Is Agile dead?
No, not at all. Agile has gotten more agile. This is why companies conduct experiment, A/B tests and other tools to generate insights. This is possible because people can segment users, update the product, learn, and merge product versions on an hourly basis.
In fact, Scrum has become a preventer of “Agile”. If you want to be agile, do not use Scrum by its book.
Recently, a nice survey showed that “Big Tech” mostly do not use Scrum. I presumed that is (partly) because they are also companies that use quick Continuous Deployment strategies. Instead, they iterate on an idea until it is ready, usually in more agile ways than Scrum.
Alternatives
Of course, you’d expect some alternatives at this point. Well, a good vision is a start. Then you may use a lightweight framework with little overhead and the ability to move fluently without fixed timeframes. There comes Kanban, but recently also Basecamp’s Shape Up methodology.
Conclusion: Ditch Scrum for software project, become more agile!