Nearly yearly, on or round April 1, Mountain Goat Software program releases a brand new mock product for the agile business. This 12 months, we’re introducing the Scrum Police.

On the brand new, official Scrum Police web site you may report crimes towards Scrumanity, view a log of current convictions, and even confess your personal crimes earlier than you’re turned in by your teammates.

Be a part of the Enjoyable at ScrumPolice.com

The crimes vary from actually foolish to just a little bit detrimental to your crew’s well-being. Listed below are just some examples of some that gained’t actually land you or your crew in jail, however I wouldn’t essentially advocate:

It’s enjoyable, it’s humorous, nevertheless it’s additionally surprisingly true.

Agile Is About Suggestions, Not Guidelines

The thought for Scrum Police got here from the truth that increasingly more folks appear to need to codify agile right into a set of strict guidelines: “You should do that” or “Should you do not do that or all of that then you definately’re not doing it proper.”

Right here’s my recommendation: Make suggestions not guidelines. There are only a few hard-and-fast guidelines to being agile:

Past that, it is way more about suggestions. And there are many issues we have realized within the a number of a long time now that agile processes have been round, even in casual varieties.

For instance, I like to recommend groups use consumer tales as their strategy to necessities. I like to recommend groups use story factors for estimating. I like to recommend that the crew decide a day apart from Mondays for beginning their iterations. I like to recommend the Szechuan Hen at Spice China.

However none of these items is required for fulfillment with agile. Every could assist a crew be higher, and I’ve causes I like to recommend every. However these items aren’t required.

There Is No One True Strategy to Be Agile–Or Is There?

It doesn’t matter what the Scrum Police say, there isn’t a excellent path to agility that works for each crew, each time.

Like many issues in life, a number of approaches can work.

For instance, there are two equally handy routes from my home to the airport. The quickest is to take a toll street that passes a couple of mile from the home and goes on to the airport. However that prices $8. The opposite route takes about 10 minutes longer, however saves me these eight {dollars}. Typically I take the primary route. Different instances, I’ll take the second.

There’s nobody excellent means for me to get to the airport. Equally, there’s nobody excellent means for a crew to be agile. For this reason agile is greatest outlined by its ideas moderately than particular practices.

Regardless of this, there are individuals who assume agile may be changed into a set of thou-must-do-it-this-way guidelines. Some folks inform me each crew advantages from timeboxed iterations (sprints). Others insist that two-week sprints are all the time the very best. A well-liked guide on Scrum insists that the each day scrum should be performed left to proper beginning with the individual to the left of the ScrumMaster.

They don’t. They aren’t. And it shouldn’t.

Scrum is intentionally incomplete. Certain, some group of gurus might get collectively and determine as soon as and for all what dash size is greatest. They might determine that every one sprints ought to begin on Tuesdays, and that groups should do pair programming on precisely 70 to 80 p.c of all code they write. However these are selections greatest made by the crew.

And identical to me en path to the airport, some groups will select a method, and others will select one other. And that’s the way it must be.

So, maybe there’s one true option to do agile—the best way that works greatest for every crew.

And for many who don’t agree, there’s all the time the Scrum Police.