When Is It Time to Stop Using Scrum?

TL; DR: When Should a Team Stop Using Scrum?

When is the time to look beyond Scrum? After all, many things—ideas, practices, mantras, etc.—outlive their utility sooner or later; why would Scrum be an exception? Moreover, we are not getting paid to practice Scrum but solve our customers’ problems within the given constraints while contributing to the sustainability of our organization. Scrum is a tool, a helpful practice but neither a religion nor a philosophy. Which brings us back to the original question: Is there a moment when a Scrum team should stop using Scrum?

When Is It Time to Stop Using Scrum? Age-of-Product.com
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Agile Micromanagement — Seriously? Making Your Scrum Work #27

TL; DR: Agile Micromanagement

There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Indeed, given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. For example, the Scrum Guide clearly states the importance of self-management at the Scrum team level. Nevertheless, the prevailing cause of many messed-up attempts to use Scrum result from what I call agile micromanagement, a pseudo-commitment to agile principles only to be overridden whenever it seems beneficial from a stakeholder’s or manager’s perspective.

Join me and delve into the importance of self-managing Scrum teams in less than two minutes.

Agile Micromanagement — Making Your Scrum Work #27 — Age-of-Product.com
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36 Scrum Stakeholder Anti-Patterns

TL; DR: Scrum Stakeholder Anti-Patterns

Learn how individual incentives and outdated organizational structures — fostering personal agendas and local optimization efforts — manifest themselves in Scrum stakeholder anti-patterns that easily impede any agile transformation to a product-led organization.

36 Scrum Stakeholder Anti-Patterns — Scrum Anti-Patterns 2022 — Age-of-Product.com
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Scrum Master Anti-Patterns — 20 Signs Your Scrum Master Needs Help

TL; DR: Scrum Master Anti-Patterns

The reasons Scrum Masters violate the spirit of the Scrum Guide are multi-faceted. Typical Scrum Master anti-patterns run from ill-suited personal traits to complacency to pursuing individual agendas to frustration with the team itself.

Read on and learn in this post on Scrum anti-patterns how you can identify if your Scrum Master needs support from the team.

Scrum Master Anti-Patterns — 20 Signs Your Scrum Master Needs Help
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Daily Scrum Anti-Patterns: 24+2 Ways to Improve as a Scrum Team

TL; DR: 24+2 Daily Scrum Anti-Patterns

In my experience, the Daily Scrum is the Scrum event with the highest anti-pattern density among all events. Learn more about Daily Scrum anti-patterns that threaten your Scrum team’s success, from becoming a reporting session to assignments to answering these three questions.

Daily Scrum Anti-Patterns: 24+2 Ways to Improve as a Scrum Team — Age-of-Product.com
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SAFe ®’s NPS ® Score as a Scaling Framework Is -56 According to 505 Survey Participants

TL; DR: The SAFe ® NPS ® Score as a Scaling Framework Is -56

SAFe® has always been a controversial topic within the agile community. Therefore, back in 2017, I ran a first survey on the Net Promoter Score® of the Scaled Agile Framework SAFe®. The result back then was -52. Four and a half years later, I reran the poll: SAFe® has been through several iterations, and many more agile practitioners have experienced working with it. However, the question still is: Would you recommend SAFe ®?

Executive Summary: SAFe®’s NPS® score based on the 2022 sample equals -56. (For details, see the data below.)

SAFe ®’s NPS ® Score as a Scaling Framework Is -56 According to 505 Survey Participants — Age-of-Product.com
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