Scrum Anti-Patterns

Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scrumdevelopment/message/50962

Faux Scrum: Disinformed or Misinformed

1. Someone advocates a practice that is not consistent with the Scrum Guide.

2. The team struggles with that "something, " often times because the "something" is not really Scrum at all, but some practice that someone inaccurately said was Scrum.

3. Rinse and Repeat until either:

a) "Scrum" is a dirty word in your organization, or

b) your organization settles for mediocrity, or

c) you decide to move on to some other process, or

d) until someone figures out what you are doing is way out of line with the Scrum Guide vision, and tries to help you get back to basics.

Faux Scrum: Give up quickly and Deviate from the Scrum Guide

1. A team struggles mildly with implementing some practice described in the Scrum Guide.

2. Rather than retrospect and improve their implementation of the practice as the Scrum Guide would suggest, they choose a different practice that deviates from the Scrum Guide, usually with negative consequences that they may or may not have the ability to immediately see.

3. See step 3 above.

Faux Scrum: Pretend your doing Scrum

1. Pretend to be doing Scrum, but instead use a bunch of your existing practices instead of what the Scrum Guide suggests. "Hey look, Mom! We're Agile!"

2. Rename a lot of your old practices, artifacts, and roles with Scrum names. Proceed as usual.

3. See step 3 above.

Faux Scrum: Selective Scrum

1. Like you did successfully with WaterRUP processes, selectively pick a small number of Scrum practices and implement those only.

2. Enjoy the new practices, but be sure you stop progressing towards the Scrum Guide vision either because you get too complacent, too busy, or because you like to half @ss things.

3. see step 3 above