Scrum
Scrum fits into a few pages: three accountabilities, five events and three artifacts. But following the rules is not enough. This site draws on A Scrum Book: The Spirit of the Game (Jeff Sutherland, James Coplien and the ScrumPLoP community, 2019, online at scrumbook.org), which describes Scrum as a set of patterns: proven solutions to recurring problems, to be put together one at a time. Each article explains a group of patterns, the problem they solve and the reasons behind the rules, without hiding the criticisms.
A sub-site of Gestemental. 25 in-depth articles · faithful to Scrum's patterns and honest about the evidence.
Foundations: understanding Scrum and its patterns
- Scrum in brief: origins and framework
From Takeuchi and Nonaka to the Scrum Guide.
- Scrum's patterns
What a pattern is, from Christopher Alexander to A Scrum Book.
- The spirit of the game
Following the spirit of Scrum rather than its rules.
- Empiricism: transparency, inspection and adaptation
The three pillars and the theory behind Scrum.
- The Scrum core as patterns
The two pattern languages and the sequence that builds a Scrum team.
The organization: who does what (Product Organization Pattern Language)
- The Scrum Team
A small, complete team, organized around the product.
- The Product Owner
A single person accountable for the value of the product.
- The Developers: an autonomous, self-organizing team
The people who build the Increment and decide how.
- The Scrum Master
Guardian of the process, serving the team.
- Stable, co-located teams
Keeping the same people together, in the same place.
- Swarming: finishing one thing at a time, together
One-piece flow applied to the team.
- Protecting the Sprint from interruptions
Interrupt buffer, emergency procedure and the small red telephone.
- Scaling up
Several teams for one product.
The value stream: from need to Increment (Value Stream Pattern Language)
- From Vision to Product Backlog
A single, ordered list of what will bring value.
- Refining the Product Backlog
Preparing items so that they are ready in time.
- Estimation and velocity
Relative points and "yesterday's weather".
- The Sprint
A fixed rhythm for producing an Increment.
- Sprint Planning and the Sprint Backlog
Choosing a goal and building the Developers' plan.
- The Daily Scrum
Fifteen minutes to replan the day, not to report to anyone.
- Making work visible
Scrum board, burndown and information radiators.
- The Definition of Done and quality
Knowing when it is really finished.
- The Sprint Review
Inspecting the Increment with the stakeholders.
- The retrospective and continuous improvement
Applying Scrum to Scrum itself.
- Release plan and roadmap
Forecasting without promising the impossible.
Perspectives and limits: the critical compass
- Criticism and the state of the evidence
The central critical article: "zombie" Scrum, certifications and what the studies show.
Sources
The patterns are described from A Scrum Book: The Spirit of the Game (Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2019), whose published patterns can be read on scrumbook.org. The book is under copyright: the articles paraphrase it, quote it briefly and link to each pattern's page. The rules of Scrum are those of the Scrum Guide by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland (2020 edition, scrumguides.org).