Happy 21st Scrum!

Happy 21st Scrum!

Scrum just turned 21, finally old enough to have a beer! Hard to believe, but 21 years ago SCRUM (yes, it was all caps back then) was born. Many thanks to Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber who codified Scrum in 1995 in order to present it at the OOPSLA conference in Austin, Texas via the paper “SCRUM Software Development Process” [1]. For those who may not know it or need a refresher, take at look at the beautiful history of scrum and relish in the amazement of how Jeff and Ken modeled “Scrum” after the 1986 groundbreaking paper “The New New Product Development Game” by Takeuchi and Nonaka [2]. A great read for anyone wanting to understand the core of Scrum.

While birthdays are a time to celebrate what was, it is also important to look at what lies ahead. Dave West, Product Owner at Scum.org, has an interesting blog on where he sees Scrum headed. Building the bridges to the software craftsmanship and DevOps communities will be one of the key developments to watch for as Scrum reaches for 22. The Agile Alliance, as you might expect, has this to say about Scrum’s 21st.

There will twists and turns as Scrum continues to mature…Recently the Scrum Guide, the de facto bible of Scrum  was updated to include the 5 Scrum Values, it’s first update in 3 years. What we must be careful of is claims such as “Scrum 2.0” or any sort of “new and improved Scrum”. Here is what Ken Schwaber said about any attempt at Scrum 2.0 – “There will be no Scrum Release 2.0…Why not? Because the point of Scrum is not to solve [specific problems of development]… Scrum unearths the problems caused by the complexity and lets the organization solve them, one by one, over and over again.” Well said Ken.

1. “SCRUM Development Process”, Ken Schwaber Advanced Development Methods, 131 Middlesex Turnpike Burlington, MA 01803

2. “The New New Product Development Game”, Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka, Harvard Business Review, January 1986