Talk:Scrum (software development)

Psiĥedelisto's review

Do these platitudes help the reader to understand the company?

~ Rhetorical question @ WP:MISSION

As requested by Walter Görlitz, I'm backing up each tag I added. Consider this something of an ad hoc WP:PR, I suppose... Despite being a computer programmer by profession, my job really has never put me on a collision course with this concept before. I've worked solo since 2018, on individual contracts for individual features to add to, or bugs to fix in, free software, mostly to FontForge. Before that, when I still worked in the normal commercial/proprietary software "industry", agile software development was still all the rage. But enough about me...

Note, I have a dry style of writing. I'm trying to help the three paid editors, and any other contributors, see what's wrong with this article; sometimes I feel the best way to do this is by being straightforward and sometimes telling sarcastic jokes. You've been warned. A good friend asked me to look at this article and to give my opinion on its quality, which resulted in my initial tagging.

MOS:PUFF / WP:MISSION

Not my tag, but I agree with it. This article is riddled with language that says a whole lot of nothing. That might be OK for the Scrum website, but not for an encyclopedia. A particularly egregious example from § Limitations:

From a business perspective, Scrum has many virtues, one of which is that it is designed to yield the best business solutions.

Isn't every approach to managing software developers "designed" to yield the "best business solutions"? Why would anyone "design" an approach to managing software developers that's meant to yield subpar "business solutions"? What even is a "business solution"; I assume it's anything that solves a "business problem", so what kind of business problem are we talking about here? It's no accident that {{solution-inline}} redirects to {{buzzword inline}}. It is also completely out-WP:NPOV to write an unqualified Scrum has many virtues in any context whatsoever. If Scrum has many virtues, I also think I have many virtues, and I'd like my Wikipedia page upgraded to reflect that. Preferably if we can put it in the most negative section as well, as here, that would be ideal.

MOS:LEAD

I tagged {{Lead rewrite}} because that's what's needed. The lead is not following the most important parts of MOS:LEAD; no part of the lead would be in this article if it were WP:FA-class. The lead in this article is not an "overview". Again, more MOS:PUFF: advanced technologies; complex products. These phrases do nothing to enlighten readers. Complex compared to what? Advanced compared to what?

As a quite note, sprint retrospective to continuously improve makes absolutely no sense, and I can't WP:SOFIXIT because I have no idea what is meant. Sprint retrospectively, perhaps? That also makes no sense, at least with how I understand the word sprint.

As I'll discuss later, the inline cites in the lead are also unsuited for inclusion.

WP:FANPOV

§ Key ideas just compounds problems in the lead and other sections, and starts crossing from MOS:PUFF and into WP:FANPOV. [Scrum] challenges assumptions of the traditional, sequential approach to product development... How? Also, there will be unpredictable challenges—for which a predictive or planned approach is not suited; but then we have the entire §§ Workflow and Roles, which detail in exhaustive (and exhausting) detail exactly how every little part of the Scrum system is, indeed, planned out and predictable. Is there anything less predictable than a daily fifteen minute meeting?

From § Roles, we get this role is crucial about the "product owner", who uses Scrum’s empirical tools to manage highly complex work, while controlling risk and achieving value, so presumably, no other management style can do this, because they don't have "the empirical tools" (they lack the spiritual technology, perhaps?). It's very obvious that the article is already deciding, in WP:WIKIVOICE, that Scrum is the best, and everything else is just backstory.

Another thing I'm not impressed by is the continuous use of the word traditional to talk about other practices. This is more WP:FANPOV—we, the Scrum masters of the universe, are the enlightened, and everyone else is stuck in burdensome "traditions". This is especially visible in the sentence Scrum does not formally recognise the role of project manager, as traditional command and control tendencies would cause difficulties, which doesn't actually mean anything, but could, perhaps with better sources, start approaching some actual meaningful statement about Scrum governance. Right now it sounds like no one in charge. Is Scrum an anarchy? A new character is introduced very late into the article, at § Cancelling a sprint, the mysterious character of management. Of course, capitalism exists, and our allergy to this term could not have been expected to continue indefinitely. Have we indeed just renamed the project manager a scrum master and sprinkled some MOS:PUFF on top?

WP:V / WP:RS

Our regularly scheduled program is on hold while we go over some sources.

• Schwaber and Sutherland (2017) is WP:PRIMARY. It's being used inappropriately right in the lead. We ought to be able to find a WP:THIRDPARTY to back that up.
• I see no evidence Agile Alliance is WP:RS, though it may just be a quasi-RS as a trade rag of sorts.
• DZone is WP:UGC and must be removed.
• StackOverflow is WP:UGC and must be removed.
• Schwaber's bio on Scrum.org is WP:PRIMARY and has no capitalized title; source has either changed or never said what it's meant to.
• There is no reason to believe "Agile Learning Labs", Johnson (2011), is an WP:RS. This is just someone's blog.
• Schwaber (2004), Microsoft Press, despite the imprint, is still WP:PRIMARY due to its author; however, I don't think any use of it in the current text is inappropriate.
• Schwaber (2004), Advanced Development Methods, more WP:PRIMARY.

• So we're using two primary sources to draw an inference no WP:RS makes about why people started capitalizing SCRUM sometimes. Probably not appropriate.

• Verheyen (2013), this guy at least has a serious WP:COI if he's not WP:PRIMARY himself. According to his bio:[1]

Gunther left consulting in 2013 to found Ullizee-Inc and partner exclusively with Ken Schwaber, Scrum co-creator. He represented Ken and the Scrum.org organization in Europe, shepherded the “Professional Scrum” series, and guided Scrum.org’s global network of Professional Scrum Trainers. Gunther is co-creator to Agility Path, EBM (Evidence-Based Management), and the Nexus framework for Scaled Professional Scrum.

This in my view is more than enough to make Verheyen WP:PRIMARY.

I see no reason to keep going so granular, those are the major issue sources, and any other source by either Schwaber, Sutherland or Verheyen.

Third-party sources need to start being prioritized; Deemer et al. (2012) looks like a place to start. The Addison-Wesley sources and the John Wiley & Sons sources also seem at first brush WP:RS to me where they weren't written by Schwaber, Sutherland, or Verheyen.

One last thing before we move on. There is significant confusion in my mind about what the difference between agile and Scrum actually is. We seem to be using sources about agile, such as Flewelling (2018), but also many others when I have no reason to believe that this is appropriate. A section on the difference, if there even is one besides terminology, (I remain skeptical.) is desperately needed.

Wrap-up / ping line

@Walter Görlitz: Thanks for the kick in the pants. Definitely learned something by doing this review: my day job is awesome! Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) 06:11, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I agreed with these. Your first round was overkill. Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:05, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

@Walter Görlitz: After sleeping on it, I think the best solution is to merge this article into the agile article. However, you've been contributing to it since before I joined Wikipedia. So, what's your thought on a WP:PM? Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) 20:45, 29 May 2020 (UTC) (please ping me!)

I think there's enough here for a stand-alone article. It's not unlike the Kanban (development) article although the documentation there is better. Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:02, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal

As mentioned by another user on the Talk:Scrum Sprint page, these two pages currently seem to have a large degree of overlap. I therefore propose that Scrum Sprint either be rewitten with another focus, merged into or redirected to Scrum (software development). Sauer202 (talk) 13:15, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

I have withdrawn my merge request. Sprints are not just used in scrum, and deserves its own topic. Sauer202 (talk) 12:44, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

The Scrum sprint article has again been suggested for merging into the scrum article for some time. See Talk:Scrum sprint#Merger proposal for details. Sauer202 (talk) 08:28, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Criticism has biased wording

The criticism section does not appear to be an unbiased assessment. Instead, it reads as a defense of Scrum. For instance, the opening sentence is:

Scrum has come under fire many times, mainly by those applying concepts poorly yet expecting the same results, or misunderstanding cultural changes that scrum requires

This indicates that much of the criticism is from people who don't understand Scrum. As a result, the remainder of the criticism section may be read as suspect. I'm not sure, but I believe this section needs to be rewritten or a warning added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Screenmutt (talk • contribs) 14:48, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@Screenmutt: WP:SOFIXIT. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:43, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, the section seems very pro-Scrum. 137.79.152.241 (talk) 00:33, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

The entire section is lacking when it comes to citation. There are only a few references, and one of them (one of the so-called criticisms) is from a co-founder of Scrum! I would suggest that if you want to make this section less biased, then consider whether the entire section needs to be re-written using only good sources. And by good sources, I mean published criticisms of the Scrum framework, not random blog posts. If we can't do that, then I have to question whether we even need this section. Everything has critics, but not all criticisms are encyclopedic. Canute (talk) 15:43, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Scrum etymology

This might be of interest: "Scrum is not an acronym. It’s an event in the game of Rugby, where likeminded people get together and politely discuss ownership of a ball. — Ken Schwaber (Google Tech Talks, september ‘06) From this source, on page 3: 20080116-kort-om-scrum.pdf Sauer202 (talk) 12:47, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

I have just done an edit where I removed the ", or SCRUM" from the intro paragraph. I then reverted that change as I saw the paragraph of "Scrum is occasionally seen written in all-capitals, as SCRUM.". The reference note literally links to a stackexchange.com question with the only response being one of "It should not be written as SCRUM" (paraphrased).

In my view Scrum should only ever be written as such - try and find it written as SCRUM by Ken or Jeff or on scrum.org etc. Hashbangdevil (talk) 09:29, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

OK - just seen the article from 2004 where Ken does write it all in caps. Why in that one article? Hashbangdevil (talk) 09:38, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Hello, I removed the variant SCRUM from the lead, as scrum is not commonly capitalised, so I don't see the need to include that rare variation in the lead. Sauer202 (talk) 08:21, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Agile and SCRUM are not Project managment methodologies

I read the entire Scrum Guide from cover to cover again and there is no opinion anywhere in it that Agile or Scrum are project management methodologies. However, there are many sentences and phrases proving that Scrum is a framework vision of process management, whether it's software development or anything else. The document uses the word Product many times in the sense of Software or something other than software. acc. the authors have completely forgotten that the effect of the production process may be not only a physical Product or a virtual product in the form of Software, but also a Service and e-Service, because manufacturing companies produce Products, and service companies "produce" Services, which is clear from the so-called the concept of process management of the enterprise. At the very beginning, the authors write that Scrum is a Framework for managing the development and maintenance of a comprehensive Product, i.e. the production process.

They go on to write directly that Scrum is a process framework, so the word “Process” still appears many times, not the word „Project”. They further write that Sprints are similar to Projects with a horizon of no more than 1 month (so the conclusion is that Sprints are not mini-projects either). acc. Sprints are simply production cycles, and all of Scrum is a framework for managing the production process. The production process can function independently when it is Ongoing production or it can be part of the Project when the Project needs to produce something. Therefore, Agile and Scrum could be considered as dedicated sub-methodologies dedicated to managing the Product Development Process in Prince2. So Agile, Scrum and Kanban are sub-methodologies to the Prince2 methodology in terms of producing Products (and I would also add Services and e-Services) in the Project. On the other hand, it is totally wrong to consider them as replacement methodologies for project management such as Prince2. So all the propaganda on the Internet on this subject and book publications are at most suitable for the trash, and the GTP chat, if you ask him about it, just mindlessly repeats the same nonsense that he found on the Internet and various databases. So the reality is this:

- Prince2 is a project management methodology,

- PMI is a Library of good practices regarding project management (because it is not a Methodology, as the authors themselves write in the introduction to the PMBook),

- SCRUM, Agile, Kanban are Frameworks or Methodologies for managing production processes (and not any projects).

Thus, in relation to the production of software, the expression "Programming project" and not "Project" can be considered correct. The term Software venture (in Polish “Przedsięwzięcie programistyczne”) has been used for years in many software engineering publications. Unfortunately, such a concept does not exist in English and therefore they translate it into English as Project so according to me It's very confusing because Project is a Project and Process is a Process and they are completely different things. Attempts to combine the Production Process with project management into one methodology ended in failure. The only sensible solution is to recognize agile methodologies as a sub-methodology in the Prince2 methodology dedicated to managing the process of producing Products (or Services or e-Services) in a Project managed in accordance with the Prince2 methodology. Marek Prasoł (talk) 13:30, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Marek. A very valid point about not a PM methodology. Oradium (talk) 20:06, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Marketing tone in the lead

"Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps people, teams, and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems." What sort of way is this to open an objective descriptive article? Like all marketing openers, it tells you nothing whatever about what the thing is, other than that the writer is absolutely sure it would "generate" plenty of "value" for you. 212.123.0.8 (talk) 13:00, 22 June 2023 (UTC)