I saw an interesting blog today by Bill Wake called "Scrum is a Silver WHAT and you want to put it WHERE?" where he makes the pithy statement that "Scrum is not a silver bullet – it's a silver mirror." Now I definitely think this is a good blog and recommend you read it. However, I must admit to having had two simultaneous reactions to it – and realized it epitomized my concerns about how Scrum is promoted. My first reaction was – pretty cool.  read more »

This blog is the first in a two-part blog post. This one deals with the differences between Kanban and Scrum. The next one deals with what you can do with this knowledge. There are a lot of people who don't want to talk about the differences between Kanban and Scrum. Some say you can't compare them because they are like apples and oranges – different things. Many (almost all from the Scrum community) go so far as to say you should suspect the motives of those who even make such a comparison.  read more »

One of the Linked In Scrum groups has had a long-running conversation about whether one should start with a "purist" model of Scrum. It reminds me of past conversations about the "Nokia Test" for Scrum. Both conversations are focused on whether one should do Scrum practices "properly." As if there is such a thing as "proper" Scrum!

Now, I often hear practitioners say that "one size does not fit all" and "there are no best practices" and yet they persist in talking about the best practices of Scrum ans testing for proper Scrum. Isn't that a contradiction?

Anyway, I added a response to the Linked In thread that I thought would be of interest. Below is a slightly edited version of my response.

Should you use a "purist" model of Scrum? 

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I've had an interesting last 5 weeks – 3 conferences and a week of vacation! I keynoted at Agile Japan in Tokyo alongside Professor Nonaka (co-creator of the general Scrum product development method from which Jeff Sutherland created the Scrum Software Development process). I gave two talks at the Lean Software and Systems Consortium (LeanSSC) conference in Atlanta and I just sponsored and talked at the San Diego PMI. All with a vacation in between where I was able to reflect on the industry (those who know me know I never totally disengageJ ). These last few days I've been re-reading David Anderson's Kanban book – which I highly recommend to all software developers and managers.

The conferences represented very diverse audiences: those new to software agility, experts in software agility, and those unclear what Agile even is (and with many not even in software). Nevertheless, there was a common theme across all three: Respect for management, the recognition of the need to attend to the whole value stream, and a belief that people were good and if there were problems you needed to look at the systems in which they were working rather than accuse the teams of lacking discipline or motivation. It was refreshing! And, unfortunately, not something I typically notice to be widespread in many mainstream Agile conferences (particularly those centered around non-Lean Agile). Fortunately, this awareness is slowly growing in these more mainstream Agile conferences.

I point this out because I believe Agility is entering a new phase.

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Israel Gat, of the Agile Executive , was kind enough to invite me to write a guest blog for him. I have long thought the Agile manifesto was an over-reaction and needsd balance. Here are some thoughts on this - Balancing Agile .

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it – even if I have said it – unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. – The Buddha

We're coming back from Agile Japan and we decided to stay at Turtle Bay Resort on the north end of the island. I just took a great walk along the beach and realized it made a great metaphor for flow based development. I've never been out on this end of the island – and must say I love it. We'd stayed in the Marriott Ihilani, which is also nice, but isn't as Hawaiian so to speak.  read more »

Well, it depends. J Depends on what you are trying to do. Are you trying to explain Lean or are you trying to get someone to be able to take advantage of its principles and apply them in their own work?  read more »

I have been doing a lot of seminars and webinars in the last few weeks. People are always asking me to contrast Scrum and Kanban. There are several salient points that come to mind. But one is particularly relevant and I thought I'd just post this quick blog to state it.

I recently tweeted that I was sometimes irritated that when I've stated something about Scrum that I consider a shortcoming, I usually get called a "Scrum Basher". I would much prefer people engage me on what I have designated as a short-coming of Scrum. If, in fact, my assessment is right, I would be helping those who would be running into a problem. If, in fact, my assessment is wrong, it would be better to engage in a conversation with me to let both myself and others, that my opinion was wrong.