Having spent the last 5 years working in retail, and specifically high end fashion, I’ve seen a lot of obsessing over labels. You might expect that of the retail fashion industry, but it seems this obsession with labels has made its way into the software development community too.
Using a framework like Scrum is a great way to start the evolution away from a more traditional software delivery approach. Scrum can be used to facilitate that change, but it isn’t the goal of the change itself.
The Scrum Guide states: “Scrum is not a process or a technique for building products; rather, it is a framework within which you can employ various processes and techniques”. It acknowledges that it’s not the be-all-and-end-all and actively encourages you to experiment.
The Agile Manifesto is underpinned by its 12 principles. The manifesto and the principles were developed by a group of people who came from a variety of different backgrounds, and who used a variety of different processes. The manifesto and the principles were the things that unified them, not the framework or method they employed. The principles are agnostic of approach, and they encourage us to embrace change.
If we can “satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software”, by developing a process using Scrum as a framework, that’s great. If we can achieve the same thing using a process that doesn’t rely on every facet or feature of Scrum, one that we’ve evolved to ourselves, then that’s also great. We may not be able to call it ‘Scrum’, but equally we shouldn’t be afraid of being told it’s not ‘Agile’ by those that misrepresent the concept.
If your company hires an Agile Consultant, will they have done so because they want to implement a specific framework, or because they want to become more effective at delivering software? Beware the snake oil salesman.
I view Agile as a toolkit. I dip into that toolkit and take out the best tool for the job at hand, and I don’t worry if the result can’t be labelled.
Image credit (under creative commons licence): Geekalicious