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State of Scrum: Scrum’s Past, Present, and Future
There have been several articles examining the most recent Scrum guide since its introduction in late last year. We want to examine it from a different angle. Let’s examine its origins before engaging in a “Scrum-fiction” exercise to try and foretell its destiny and that of Scrum.
It’s hard to believe the amount of Scrum articles published the last years. Following the publication of the updated 2020 Scrum Guide, interesting pieces examining the most recent changes and how they have effected Scrum have flooded social media.
How do you scrum?
Scrum is a framework for team collaboration. Scrum enables teams to learn from experiences, self-organize while working on a problem, and reflect on their victories and losses to continuously improve, much like a rugby squad practicing for the big game (thus the name).
The scrum I’m referring about can be utilized for various types of teamwork, even though software development teams use it most commonly. This is only one of the many benefits of scrum. Scrum is a set of meetings, tools, and roles that help teams organize and manage their work. It is frequently thought of as an agile project management framework.
Scrum’s lengthy history began 25 years ago, at OOSPLA 1995, when the Scrum framework was formally introduced. Since then, Scrum has significantly changed. On the one hand, there was a natural development toward applying Scrum in various situations, which led to results that eventually found their way into the model. Changes have also been made to the Scrum components (sprint release planning was added, removed, added again; user stories, the daily stand-up, burndowns, sprint backlog, estimates, etc.). Even though many teams still use them, there are some components that have lost their status as official description over time.
Editions of the Scrum Guide:
Since 2010, the Scrum Guide has had seven editions (2010, July 2011, October 2011, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2020). New issues are published on Schwaber and Sutherland’s official website, ScrumGuides.org.
The 2020 edition is merely 14 pages lengthy compared to this first guide’s 21 pages. Examining earlier editions, we can plainly see how they condensed it—and not just in terms of the number of pages:
Less dictating.
For instance, the three well-known “Daily Stand-Up” questions have vanished, each meeting (aside from the Daily) has a maximum time limit, and there are no specific instructions or examples provided as to what to do in various circumstances.
Clearer.
The following criteria are also more precise while also establishing very clear minimums. This will prevent the label “Scrum” from being applied to anyone and everything.
More value-focused in nature.
In reality, value has steadily emerged as a key idea in the development of the agile philosophy as a whole.
Less distinction in how functions are defined for individuals. Roles have evolved into responsibilities or duties, and there is just one team. It combats the propensity for roles to become distinct jobs.
Generalization.
Since its inception, it has gradually moved away from the software industry to mirror the current state of affairs, where Scrum is used in nearly every activity and situation. But there is a catch to this: you don’t always realize whether it’s the best course of action in every situation when it becomes a sort of default behavior.
The Future
I want to speculate on what I believe Scrum will look like in 5, 10, and even 15 years after we’ve seen the road it has taken thus far. I’ll start with the most obvious trends and go more speculative as we go:
- It will cease to refer to software development and turn into a framework for agile teams, whatever the nature of the job they do.
- Each author defends their own framework, and Scrum is a neutral ground set for all time in teams, thus it will never grow towards scale.
- Even less distinction will be made between the various tasks that the entire team will share.
- With regard to removing content and prescriptiveness, it has gone as far as it could. Sooner or later,
With regard to removing content and prescriptiveness, it has gone as far as it could. They might eventually begin re-adding them. With instances and illustrations, it is possible for the contrary to occur; the first articles contained diagrams and visual elements, whereas the most recent ones did not.
Both Kanban and Scrum will be “Kanbanized,” but they will never be the same thing. To distinguish them as unique entities, each will continue to use its own naming standards and distinguishing features.
A select group of individuals will take over maintaining the official edition of the Scrum Guide from Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. However, the community will insist on sticking with the most recent revision made by the two founders, halting formal development.
Scrum will eventually lose its significance as new frameworks that incorporate Kanban, Scrum, and other components for particular industries (such as software product development, marketing, innovation, etc.) arise. Scrum will continue to be the compass that teams use to direct themselves as they create their method of working and organizing until all of this occurs (or not – I could be wrong!). To get good results, you must grasp Scrum more deeply and use it effectively. I am excited to see how the Scrum journey continues and in what shape or form teams will continue using it.
