Models
Once upon a time, people believed that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it. Then Copernicus came and offered the theory that matched the observed reality better. Then Newton attempted to explain why planets revolve (among other things). Then Einstein pointed out where Newton was wrong and straightened the theory to match the needs of his contemporaries – very soon to be superseded by a bunch of crazy physicists who invented quantum mechanics. These days, we pretty much know for a fact that quantum mechanics is wrong and we are in a search for a better theory. Now, all of the above theories have a couple of things in common:
- they are purely theoretical and idealized models of the real world (yes, even the flat earth theory)
- they were significantly better than their predecessors
- initially, they fit the needs of their creators
- they became the model to use, the latest craze, the offcial religion, the mainstream, displacing the previous models
- over time the number of corner case where the models broke increased to the point where they were unusable
- yet, the evangelists of the existing model fought hard to preserve them and to prove that suggested alternatives were pure lunacy (which, to be honest, 99% of them were)
What does this have to do with Scrum?
Well, everything – you saw that coming, didn't you? All the development process definitions are theoretical models of the real world, just as physical models are. And they break in very simmilar ways. And the new, alternative methodologies are ridiculed and fought with similarly. And eventually become mainstream and break too.
So, don't believe for a second that Scrum (or any agile methodology) is immune from this process. Scrum will be replaced by something better – just you watch. Right now, agile methodologies have just become mainstream, having relegated the previous models to the status of the 'flat earth' theories. Which is precisely the moment when they are doomed to start breaking in more and more situations – and the paradox is that many these scenarios were created by the very fact that we have become so much more efficient thanks to using agile development methods!
So the question is: does Scrum (or any other agile method) still work now? Well, I would say that it mostly does, but in some scenarios – it works just barely. And if you attend the ScrumMaster training, they will introduce you to all the caveats, patches and workarounds that are being currently applied to the „real thing” to make it still work in a real world. Like – what to do if your customer or a product owner is not embedded in the team – in the case of my team, they are on the other side of the planet! Or, what do you do when the customer will absolutely not accept anything else than a fixed price contract? Pass on the contract, as the Good Book seems to suggest? But see, I happen to like the money that the customer is offering, so I thing this is just crazy talk.
The Alternative
I can safely say that there exists one development methodology that is guaranteed to be matching your needs always: it is called „common sense”. Really, you happen to know much better what the needs of your projects are then Scrum consultants. You do need to familiarize yourself with what they are offering, you do need to read all these books. There is a lot of good practices described there, that will make your life easier. If you are crazy about certifications, by all means, go on, make yourself a ScrumMaster. But then – pick and choose. It is ultimately your responsibility to design your process so that it works for you. If the result ends up not resembling the „standard” process – that's too bad for the standard.
via http://agilesoftwaredevelopment.com/blog/janusz-gorycki/dont-use-scrum
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