Tobias Mayer asks When is Scrum not Scrum? In his post, he questions if all of the principles outlined in the Scrum books are still appropriate today. Further, Tobias wonders if how he builds software is “Scrum” or not. Here are some of my thoughts.

I couldn’t agree more with his thoughts on the length of an iteration (or “sprint” in Scrum). As Tobias points out, when Scrum was developed (12 years ago), 30 days seemed like a short period of development time. Today, I couldn’t imagine a 30-day iteration. Part of this is definitely due to the tools available now, but some of it is also related to the changing mindset regarding how software is developed. Long periods of development just don’t seem to be the norm any longer - even in more heavyweight methodologies.

I am also in full agreement with his thoughts on displaying the backlog on the wall with 3 x 5 note cards. This is something that we’ve done here at Refactr and as a part of previous teams. I really like the way it works. Keeping a visual representation on the wall helps everyone stay in the loop on progress and on what’s upcoming.

The use of task boards over spreadsheets also resonates - keeping everything visible at all times is important. However, I disagree with him on his software point: I do think that a software solution could definitely augment this process. There’s not a solution out there right now that effectively fills this void without getting in the way - making it painful to use them. However, I believe that a good software application can definitely help here.

Additionally, I like his thoughts of tasks being tracked in a binary fashion: Done or Not Done, rather than in hours. Obviously, estimation still fits many situations (not to mention the requirements of some project stakeholders), but tracking the actual hours spent on each task may not provide as much value as I used to believe.

Finally, at Refactr, we don’t always use the role of Scrum Master either, as we agree that a good self-organizing team will fill that role as appropriate. As with everything, it just depends on the project and whether there is a need for a full-time Scrum Master.

Regardless of whether you call it Scrum or not is of much less importance than following agile principles. As we like to say, being agile is a mindset, not a checklist of things you do. Any process that is agile allows - and encourages - the modification of the process to fit the team and the environment. Because of this, whether you are using Scrum or XP (or …) becomes far less important - and sometimes too difficult to distinguish.