Yes Scrum sucks. But it feels good to get the word out. Feel free to take a look at the many postings on this blog in relation to this subject, and post your own thoughts and comments on just how much and why Scrum Sucks.
If you are new to this blog, you should probably start here:
Software Maestro
The Practice and Art of Software Composition 
I loved the Scrum Master Jar Jar, it’s hilarious! These rituals that are performed everyday by scrummers are just…. weird!
We’ve been implementing Scrum-agile methods for about a year now, and I hate it. It could called “Programming for commies”. Nobody owns anything they write. There’s very little clear direction outside of stories, sprints and backlogs.
I’m a developer, but I’m not the boss. And it’s the bosses prerogative on how he runs the company. A lot of agile methodologies seems to focus to much on empowering every single developer, no matter their prowess. If I want power that bad, than I should go elsewhere. Not create technical labor unions.
i have just started on my first scrum project a few weeks ago. Is this hell or what? My productivity is almost zero because there is so much bullshit going on. I don’t want to write a little yellow post it note every time i get a coffee, or need to have a conversation with someone. It is actually a waterfall methodology because i can only do my tasks in order, i cant pick and choose what i want to do.
Here is a scrum anthem sung to the tune of
“Stand up, Stand up for Jesus”
Stand up For your Scum Master
He is now your new boss
If he finds you sitting
He could be rather cross.
Record all your sprint items
To get to Sprint review
How you got from A to B
You haven’t got a clue.
Scrum is simply about bringing the work back from India. Think about it:
With Scrum the work is ultimately ordered by the business when drafted on a post-it note. In these paperless offices, creating digital products, we have devolved back to pens and paper.
But post-it notes cannot be teleported to India. Once drafted on a post-it note, the work must be done locally.
Clearly we could transmit the user stories to India and let them create their own post-it notes, and host their own Scrum meetings, however there is no way to ensure they are following the rules of Scrum.
Furthermore the Indians don’t like the confrontational nature of Scrum. And the idea of somebody called the Master is quite reasonably viewed as arcane and offensive by people of such ex-colonial backgrounds.
So we have created this gargantuan pseudo-religion of agile just to save us from the globalisation of labour.
We have sacrificed our intellectualism and our collegiality because we failed to compete with India in real procurement terms.
Instead of becoming cheaper and better and faster, we have become idiotic and arrogant; commanding the market to pay more because we are more ‘agile’ than the competition.
I hate Scrum because our management uses it to timebox every move a developer makes. I can hardly go to the toilet without creating a ticket and billing 5 minutes time on it. The stories are indefinitely small so absolutely no one has a clue about the big picture anymore.
I am a mainframe application developer – mostly within the online CICS realm, but the company as well has many uses for batch assembler to support the Cobol majority in this regard. I tend complete assigned tasks in record time, so I also have developed a number of in-house processes in my ‘spare time’, as it were (an example here would be release installs into QA which once took a full weekend now take an hour or two). In all respects, then, I am a ‘cowboy coder’, and so do my best work when simply left the hell alone. I would in fact say that if ever there were an actual ‘agile’ methodology, then I have always been an informal practitioner. Something over two years ago, company leadership went insane and decided to go ‘full retard’ with the agile mentality. It’s been an infuriating and miserable experience, and just when I think that it can’t get any worse, it does. My attitude and productivity shrivel as my job satisfaction gets its balls stomped on a daily basis. I now dread going to work, and wish the day away every minute that I’m there. I’ve recently discovered that such madness may actually result in murder, and can only hope that this particular author was telling a story rather than confessing. It was rather short (and strange), but it made me look upon my coworkers with new eyes – any one of them could blow a gasket at any time now:
Scrum works great if all team members are best friends and nobody has an agenda. What business is that??
We’ve been having this scrum agile methodology shoved into our throats for about 3 month now. We organized into so called feature teams… Productivity is oscillating next to zero. Good example, our analysts needed automated daily report. So usual solution would be to write a stored proc, some external code (script, java program – whatever) to call that proc, output report data and notify the user. On a way there you would discuss report layout with the user, couple of iterations of user acceptance testing – and you’re done! Now we had to split the task into tiny subtasks and attach them to the wall using postits – no Jira tickets anymore! So one person will be writing stored proc, another person will be creating a script, and third person will be designing report layout. Normally it would be one programmer’s 2 days job. Now it’s half-sprint task for 3.
And amount of meetings we have is just astonishing. 5 daily scrums that seldom last less than 20 minutes. Then once a week: 3 hour backlog meeting, 1-2 hours design sessions, 1-2 hours spring retrospective meetings, 1 hour touchbase meeting with coordinating manager. I decided to get someting useful for me personally from this garbage :). I am getting good at activity simulation, I meditate on meetings and I am learning how to write with my left hand during design sessions.
it is all bullshit. the people making us use scrum are used to managing huge projects, not me and my small wordpress site. working in a company that does both huge .net projects and small open-source cms projects is so difficult because the PM’s are used to using this one tool and getting them to understand that tool DOESNT work for everyone is just impossible. writing up a description of everything i’m going to do, assigning it points, telling everyone about it so they can go “oh yeah ok cool, because i really needed to know that” …. instead of working i’m dragging task descriptions from box to box, assigning this to her so she can assign it to him so he can do something then assign it to her then she can assign it to me. meanwhile the task itself could have been done and off my plate, but i spent so much time in this game of telephone it took twice as long.
waste. of. time.
Scrum is not a good method for software development.
The expectations for programmers are wrong, in the first place.
People think a good programmer works hard and knows a lot about .NET. Sounds reasonable but wrong…
The beste method for software planning is RAD (Rapid Application Development) A system to get the maximum from the IDE.
A good programmer is very lazy, he lets the computer do most of the work. I don’t work for the computer, the computer works for me. That is the right attitude.
Also a good programmer knows nothing about .NET, .NET consists of millions of complex functions, it is inpossible to KNOW it all. But there is good documentation from Microsoft. You should know nothing and look everyting up.
What a good programmer should know is digital electronics. If you can design your own computer, you certenly can programm it.
So good programmers are lazy people, that know nothing, but can design a system. And programm using Rapid Application Development, the software design metodology based on prototyping.
Scrum sucks!
Remi van Dongen PhD (CompSci)
Scrum is the biggest hype since EJB, it got popular because it promises what managers crave most: a repeatable process with replaceable parts, who needs talent and ingenuity when you can have a process where everybody can do everything, right?
In reality is an illusion of control by means micromaganing and lack of trust. Creativity and talent and not welcomed here, robots and mediocre people love it..
Teams that do well despite Scrum are so good they could do well with any process.
, don’t complaint when your most talented employees start leaving.
I’ve been a highly-regarded developer for many years. My stuff does what it’s supposed to do (and more!), gets done quickly, and never breaks.
At my company, the powers that be (none of them developers) have decreed that all software projects and departments will become Agilized. (They’ve also wasted a ton of money on “agile consultants”, which I think is the real reason for the existence of Agile.) I’ve had a taste of it, and boy, does it suck. I mean, it really SUCKS. It sucks more than any other management philosophy I’ve ever seen or can even imagine.
I’m currently looking for another job.
Man you are so right, I can really feel your pain.
The problem with scrum is:
Software = Product
Any professional product has a prototype.
So what would be the best design method?
Indeed! Prototyping.
And yes you don’t need testers since prototyping is all about testing in fact. Removing errors from prototype is my core business as a programmer.
With Scrum you need testers, now you get more people on the project being less effective….
I never needed testers with prototyping I build 100% bug free code.
For 3000 years, prototypes have been proved reliable, since when doe we need Scrum???? 10 years? 15?
The answer is ZERO, 0 or NULL
I NEVER needed Scrum…..
Scrum is created by developers. Developers hate other developers. Its because developers are full of **it. In no other profession you are required to give status every day. This micro management/ hyper management is unprecedented. Accountants/Marketers/Lawyers don’t have to give status every day like they were unreliable slacker.
Please fellow developers, don’t hate your fellow developer even if you some day want to become a blue blooded MBA. We are only human don’t treat us like thieves. If you are a workaholic, don’t expect other to be as well. Some people like life outside of development.
Scrum to the letter is asinine. I’ve been at one company that used agile techniques and they were very successful. I’ve been at a different company that worships scrum and it continuously amounts to an enormous waste of time. Sadly, my coworkers tell me it is immensely better than the waterfall techniques they were using before. Sheesh. I don’t know why some people make development so difficult.
Scrum is for Idiots, I have seen 20 person Scrum teams work 10 years and not even getting 10% done of what I alone can do in 1 year time.
But Scrum got invented around 2002 by charlatans/conman, I used what humans are doing for over 3000 years. PROTOTYPES!!!
nl.linkedin.com/pub/remi-van-dongen/49/46/15b/
Here you can read about me and Scrum and all things I did without needing Scrum.
Scrum people just steal the bread from honest hardworking programmers like me. And they do it on purpose.
I dare Scrum people that give my 1 GOOD argument why Scrum would be better than a PROTOTYPE.
If Scrum is so good, why do they still use PROTOTYPES for fighter jets and for buildings and all other professional products???
Software is just a product.
Don’t get connend or brainwashed, professional products have a prototype it goes double for software since prototyping is part of computer science
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype
In many programming languages, a function prototype is the declaration of a subroutine or function. (This term is rather C/C++-specific; other terms for this notion are signature, type and interface.) In prototype-based programming (a form of object-oriented programming), new objects are produced by cloning existing objects, which are called prototypes.[4]
The term may also refer to the Prototype Javascript Framework.
Additionally, the term may refer to the prototype design pattern.
Prototype software is often referred to as alpha grade, meaning it is the first version to run. Often only a few functions are implemented, the primary focus of the alpha is to have a functional base code on to which features may be added. Once alpha grade software has most of the required features integrated into it, it becomes beta software for testing of the entire software and to adjust the program to respond correctly during situations unforeseen during development.[5]
Often the end users may not be able to provide a complete set of application objectives, detailed input, processing, or output requirements in the initial stage. After the user evaluation, another prototype will be built based on feedback from users, and again the cycle returns to customer evaluation. The cycle starts by listening to the user, followed by building or revising a mock-up, and letting the user test the mock-up, then back. There is now a new generation of tools called Application Simulation Software which help quickly simulate application before their development.
Extreme programming uses iterative design to gradually add one feature at a time to the initial prototype.
Continuous learning approaches within organizations or businesses may also use the concept of business or process prototypes through software models.
I quit my last job probably because of it. Some know-it-all team leader came up with this idea and the manager loved it. I hated all those endless meaningless dailys and groomings. We would stood up for over half an hour every morning and pretend to listen what everybody did yesterday and what they plan to do today. It became so frustrating that I hated my job. When I couldn’t stand another “daily” with them I quit.
Just had an interview where the hiring manager bragged about how good they were with scrum. I asked what happened if a task took longer than two weeks. A blank look came over his face and he said “no task takes more than a [two week] sprint.”