100 ScrumButs: value down the drain!

And how to fix it.

At our very first Serious Scrum Meetup we followed up on ‘ScrumBut’ and ‘a Kick in the ScrumBut’, one of the very first popular articles published at Serious Scrum. At our first meetup we figured: let’s kick some ScrumButs together!

During the meetup we divided the exercise into two parts. The first part was to share our ScrumButs. That proved to be easy:

The second part was to help each other kick some of these ScrumButs. To share and discuss small, easy first-steps. Now this proved to be harder than expected, although the reason is simple: every situation is different. Whether it is a lack of commitment, toxic-culture, command-and-control management, not having the patience and focus or lacking courage; when a team is stuck in the cave… any step, no matter how small, in any direction, will feel like a step in the dark.

So, here I curated a list of ScrumButs, with some help from the Hands-on-Agile community, with the intention to kicking every single one of them. Can you help fellow practitioners share you tips and helpful material for these?

So, we Scrum but…

1. We Scrum but… I don’t feel safe.
2. We Scrum but… Our team is not cross-functional. → Perhaps Working as a cross-functional team can inspire you.
3. We Scrum but… Can we extend the Sprint? → We didn’t meet the Sprint Goal, let’s extend the Sprint tackles this topic. And are you ready for a masterclass on the Sprint Length?
4. We Scrum but… We often skip the Retro. → Perhaps the article The Sprint Retrospective can help you out.
5. We Scrum… I guess… but… is that what JIRA is? → Perhaps start by understanding the Definition of Scrum.
6. We Scrum but… Only internal stakeholders join the Sprint Review.
7. We Scrum but… We still try to follow a roadmap. → Do people think that Scrum is Waterfall in disguise?
8. We Scrum but… Our team is not ready for self-organisation. → or are they? perhaps check out what teamwork in Scrum really means!
9. We Scrum but… Only our PO communicates with Stakeholders. → perhaps checkout how to connect the team more closely to customers.
10. We Scrum but… We have to do this hotfix right now.
11. We Scrum but… The PO tells us what to do in the Sprint Planning. → Well, guess Who decides what goes in the Sprint Backlog?
12. We Scrum but… Let’s do a [Design Sprint, Sprint 0, Architecure Runway, Pre-Sprint, Discovery Sprint, Recovery Sprint, Planning Sprint]. → We don’t deliver a working increment every Sprint may bring some insights.
13. We Scrum but… We don’t need the Daily Scrum anymore. → Here we explain the reason for The Daily Scrum.
14. We Scrum but… How does the Project Manager fit in? → Scrum doesn’t have Project Managers, so we ingnore them in our organisation deep-dives into this issue.
15. We Scrum but… Management talks Agile but acts Waterfall. → Do people think that Scrum is Waterfall in disguise?
16. We Scrum but… Failure is not an option. → Learn why you should have Sprints that ‘fail’. Hey and if you are not flexible…
17. We Scrum but… Marketing is just too dynamic to plan. → Try ‘backpacking’ not roadmapping!
18. We Scrum but… let’s skip these DoD’s for now. → We often have to cut corners on the DoD tells about this.
19. We Scrum but…The team hasn’t delivered its commitment, so they have to work overtime. → Here how we discussed Our Sprint Backlog is seen as commitment.
20. We Scrum but… We should plan a meeting to discuss... → There is an event for that!
21. We Scrum but… How many hours is a Story Point? → Understand the complexity of estimation.
22. We Scrum but… Our PO owns the Sprint Backlog. → Who decides what goes in the Sprint Backlog discusses this.
23. We Scrum but… The Sprint Review is just a Demo. → This article tells what The Sprint Review really is.
24. We Scrum but… Don’t tell our client that…. → Time for some transparency?
25. We Scrum but… We hate the Scrum Events. → Let’s make them awesome
26. We Scrum but… Our management doesn’t.
27. We Scrum but… Our Daily sometimes last forty minutes! → get a grip!
28. We Scrum but… The contracts says… → What a conundrum!
29. We Scrum but… We prefer to have the Daily Scrum every other day. → The Daily Scrum? Why Daily? tells you why it should be a daily event!
30. We Scrum but… Our Burn Down Chart only burns down on Friday. → perhaps start on a path of continuous flow.
31. We Scrum but… We don’t have a shared definition of what “Done” is. → DoD: the Swiss army knife of Scrum helps to understand why the DoD is important.
32. We Scrum but… Learning/Training?! do it in your own time. → Time to level up!
33. We Scrum but… We don’t spend time on Product Backlog Refinement. → These articles might help explain.
34. We Scrum but… Person [x] is not here, so there is not point to have [insert scrum event here]
35. We Scrum but… the Increment…it doesn’t look like anything to me.
36. We Scrum but… We don’t make our work visible. → Empiricism: Transparency explains why you should. Time to Make Work Visible!
37. We Scrum but… We all talk about automated testing but never really apply it. We don’t do manual testing either because it should be automated.
38. We Scrum but… Our team works on multiple Products at the same time. → Why to focus on one thing at a time.
39. We Scrum but… Please have it ready by tomorrow. → Is your Product Owner a Tyrant? and check out how to deal with top-down decisions.
40. We Scrum but… Management wants to adopt SAFe! → This Assessment and rating of SAFe might help change people’s minds.
41. We Scrum but… Our team is 18 people! → Mo’ people, mo’ problems. Then read The Scrum Team.
42. We Scrum but…Multiple developers on one story? that’s inefficient. → Beware: Mob Programming might shock you.
43. We Scrum but… Our Product Owner is a committee! → Why you only need one.
44. We Scrum but… we still groom our Backlog. → We discussed this one in our articles 5 controversial topics that were removed from Scrum.
45. We Scrum but… I’m a Designer/Engineer/Marketeer/Tester (etc) → try acting like a real team member!
46. We Scrum but… Management tells us we have to increase our velocity! → Here’s Why teams should stop obsessing over their velocity.
47. We Scrum but… We have a ReviewSpective! → Learn why the Sprint Events are designed the way they are.
48. We Scrum but… Jira was down. → Learn more about what it takes to make work visible.
49. We Scrum but… Let’s start with a Sprint Zero. → We don’t deliver a working increment every Sprint can help you here.
50. We Scrum but… Scrum isn’t Agile. → I invite you to read Scrum is fragile, not Agile … Are you Serious?
51. We Scrum but… Our Burn Down Chart looks more like a Burn UP chart. → learn how to monitor progress during the Daily Scrum.
52. We Scrum but… We already planned the next 6 Sprints. → But what about responding to change?
53. We Scrum but… Didn’t you get the memo?! → Are you in need of some transparency?
54. We Scrum but… Our client demanded a Big Design Up Front! → What you can learn by going Back To The Future.
55. We Scrum but… Just tell me what to do. → Is your team really self-organizing?
56. We Scrum but… We MUST use JIRA. → Are you being force-fed which tools to use?
57. We Scrum but… Our Sprints are Death Marches. → Scrum wears us down, we don’t get any respite discusses this.
58. We Scrum but… Our estimates are time-boxes/deadlines. → Why it’s important to take the time to make it right.
59. We Scrum but… DoD’s?! this is only 15 minutes work right? → Are you cutting corners on your DoD?
60. We Scrum but… We don’t have a working increment at the end of a Sprint. → We don’t deliver a working increment every Sprint can help you here.
61. We Scrum but… We have six Sprint Goals for this Sprint. → perhaps it’s time to apply FOCUS!
62. We Scrum but… The Daily is just a status report to the Scrum Master. → It’s not a status meeting!
63. We Scrum but… The team isn’t aware about promises management made to stakeholders. → Are they joining the damn Sprint Review?
64. We Scrum but… We consider Wireframes to be a ‘working increment’. → is your company engaging in a Terminology Facade?
65. We Scrum but…our stakeholders are too busy to join the Sprint Reviews. → Make it worthwhile: are you really rocking the Sprint Review?
66. We Scrum but… our product is “dark and full of terrors”. → How to deal with Technical Debt.
67. We Scrum but… A User Story is a Product Backlog item, right? → It’s one fo the 7 items that you might think are part of Scrum but aren’t.
68. We Scrum but… our Scrum Master sucks! → is your Scrum Master destined to fail?
69. We Scrum but… Our Sprint Backlog is fixed. → We do Scrum but our Sprint Backlog is fixed explains why it isn’t.
70. We Scrum but… Most of us never read the Scrum Guide. → Let’s revisit the Scrum Master’s responsibilities.
71. We Scrum but… I have no idea what my team member is working on.
72. We Scrum but… All PBI’s have to be “done” by the end of the Sprint. → We do Scrum but our Sprint Backlog is fixed explains this too.
73. We Scrum but… Our Sprint Goal is to increase velocity. → Explore the power of a great Sprint Goal. Check out how you can apply some FOCUS. Need 11 more advantages? Or our you struggling with creating great Sprint Goals?
74. We Scrum but… We can post-pone the next Sprint right?! → learn more about the Sprint Cadence and Sprint Length.
75. We Scrum but… The Forecast is our Sprint Goal. → Read Predicability in Scrum: a goal or a means?
76. We Scrum but… Management prefers Agile Coach to Scrum Master. → Cut the crap: Scrum Masters ARE Agile Coaches. And no it isn’t a Junior Agile Coach. Be proud to wear the title of Scrum Master, it’s a great job title.
77. We Scrum but… We don’t have time to resolve Technical Debt and Refactor. → Are you climbing the Mount Doom of Technical Debt? Start by making (the impact of )Technical Debt visible. Read: how to deal with Technical Debt.
78. We Scrum but… The Product Owner/Scrum Master assigns all the tasks. → Don’t let them tell you how to think
79. We Scrum but… Where and when is the Daily Scrum this time?! → learn why consistency reduces complexity with the Daily Scrum.
80. We Scrum but… Only the Product Owner can access the Product Backlog. → Understanding the differences between transparency and openness, visibility, accessibility can be tricky. Learn more about the Product Backlog.
81. We Scrum but… We don’t add Improvement Plans to the Sprint Planning. → How to facilitate a great Sprint Planning.
82. We Scrum but… Scrum is just an excuse to miss deadlines.
83. We Scrum but…The team’s velocity is not increasing so they are not improving. → Stop obsessing over Velocity.
84. We Scrum but… Scrum is outdated. → Learn how Scrum has evolved. And check out what controversial topics have been removed from Scrum.
85. We Scrum but… We don’t get the environment and support we need. → Learn why the Development Team has to be empowered. Also, remember the 5th principle of the Agile Manifesto? Learn why Scrum Teams value autonomy over span of control.
86. We Scrum but… We haven’t integrated anything in ages. → What you can do with CI on a dollar a day.
87. We Scrum but… Our Scrum Master is also the Product Owner. → Learn why it is essential that a. servant-leadership, b. self-organisation of work, and c.product ownership are split into distinct roles in the Scrum Team.
88. We Scrum but… Our organisation is too large for Scrum. → Learn about Scaling Scrum approaches, or how to Scale with Scrum without Scaling Scrum.
89. We Scrum but… They call us “pigs”.
90. We Scrum but… They call us “resources”.
91. We Scrum but… Our Product Owner is absent all the time. → if the PO is absent, so is value delivery.
92. We Scrum but… Our Daily Scrum turned into a Weekly Scrum. → Why should it be daily?
93. We Scrum but… We can’t seem to disagree and commit. → Read about contextual awareness and how to reach consensus.
94. We Scrum but… Our team isn’t trusted to get the job done. → Courage exists in many forms and transparency can save lives in creating psychological safety.
95. We Scrum but… The Scrum Master only facilitates the events. → learn more about the Scrum Master’s responsibilities.
96. We Scrum but… I’ve got complaints for days!
97. We Scrum but… QA is done by a separate team in a different building. → Read about bringing Dev and OPs together and what it means to be a cross-functional Development Team.
98. We Scrum but… We still can’t explain it to our management. → ELI6: how to explain it to a 6-year-old.
99. We Scrum but… We aren’t embracing its Values. Are your Scrum Values deflated? Explore them a bit more here and here. Display some radical candor!
100. We Scrum but… Why do we even need a Scrum Master? → So your team is performing well, does that make a Scrum Master obsolete or does it make him or her invaluable?

Feel free to add more helpful tips and tricks by leaving in-line comments!

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