Anti-patterns are a commonly used process, structure, or pattern of action that despite initially appearing to be an appropriate and effective response to a problem, has more bad consequences than good ones. Another solution exists that is documented, repeatable, and proven to be effective.(Wikipedia) The most of the issues we are facing in every Scrum implementation are common and well known, There are anti-patterns that lead to this issues and there are effective known patterns to overcome these issues. We are going to talk about the common issues, its causes and how to avoid it like long and ineffective meetings, Unorganized backlog, Amount of details in stories, messy code base, huge technical debt, estimation, Unfinished work at end of sprint ...etc.

1. Scrum Anti-patterns
Maisara Khedr

2. Maisara Khedr
● Certified Agile Coaching ICAgile
● Certified Professional Scrum
Master Scrum.org
● Certified Agile Team Facilitation
ICAgile
● 8 years in Scrum teams
● 5 years as Scrum Master

3. Scrum Repair Guide
Mike Cohn

4. Anti-patterns!!
● A commonly used process, structure, or pattern of action that
despite initially appearing to be an appropriate and effective
response to a problem, has more bad consequences than
good ones.
● Another solution exists that is documented, repeatable, and
proven to be effective.

5. The Common Pains of Scrum Teams

6. Agenda
1. Messy product backlog
2. Amount of details in user story
3. Size of user story
4. Estimation of product backlog
5. Usage of estimates
6. Wrong sprint length
7. Flaccid Scrum

7. Agenda (Cont.)
8. Unfinished work at end of sprint
9. Long planning meeting
10. Daily status meeting
11. Disappointing sprint review
12. Ineffective sprint retrospective
13. Stakeholder expectations
14. Information Radiators

8. 1. Messy Product Backlog

9. Anti-Pattern
● Very long sprint planning● Messy product backlog
Symptoms

10. Effective Pattern
● Backlog Grooming
a. Add new PBI
b. Prioritize Items
c. Split top items
d. Write details for top items
e. Remove PBI that will never be done
● When?
● Who should attend?

11. Iceberg Product Backlog

12. 2. Amount of Details in User Stories

13. Anti-Pattern
● Long Sprint Planning
● At best doing what’s written
● Write every single details
in the story
Symptoms
User Story
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14. User Story
Card
Conversation
Confirmation
Effective Pattern
● 3 C’s of User Stories
● State intent not solution
● Just enough, Just in time

15. 3. Size of Product Backlog Item

16. Anti-Pattern
● Team loses motivation● Story is too big to be
finished in one sprint
Symptoms
● Split stories to very small
stories
● Team resist splitting
● Too much time in splitting
stories
● Too many stories in one
sprint
● No testable user stories
● Too much dependencies

17. Effective Pattern
● Use split techniques: SPIDR
Spike
Path
Interface
Data
Rule
● Stick to INVEST
Independent
Negotiable
Valuable
Estimable
Small
Testable

18. 4. Estimation of Product Backlog

19. Anti-Pattern
● Details needed
● Dependent on the
estimator
● Hard to measure progress
Symptoms
● Time Estimation for
product backlog

20. Effective Pattern
● Relative sizing using story points

21. 5. The usage of estimates

22. ● Team fear estimates
● Team over estimates
● Team argue against the
value of estimating
● Estimating meetings so
painful for the managers
● Using estimates against
team
Anti-Pattern Symptoms

23. Effective Pattern
● Create safety around estimating
● Describe how the team can benefit from estimating
● Use estimates only for things the team approves of
● Separate estimates and commitments

24. 6. Wrong Sprint Length

25. ○ Overhead of sprint is huge
○ Team struggle to finish work in
sprint
○ Team struggle to split story to
fit in a sprint
● Too short sprint
Anti-Pattern Symptoms
○ Frequent PO interruption for
team to change scope
○ Planning is hard
○ Sprint starts too casual ends too
rushed
● Too long sprint

26. Effective Pattern
● Pick the suitable length
○ Inspect and adapt
○ Don’t change too often

27. 7. Flaccid Scrum

28. Anti-Pattern
● Not safe for development
team
● Codebase is a mess
● Technical debt
● Hard to add features
● Not deliver as rapid or as
reliable as it should
● They adopt the Scrum
practices.
Symptoms
● No technical practices.

29. Effective Pattern
● Apply Technical Practices
○ Refactoring
○ Automation Tests
○ Continuous Integration
○ Continuous Delivery
○ Infrastructure as a code
○ Monitoring and logging

30. 8. Unfinished work at end of Sprint

31. ● Team don’t finish planned
work at end of sprint
● Hard to make commitments
● Team loses credibility
● No sense of urgency
● Meaningless milestones
Anti-Pattern Symptoms

32. ● Credit for partially done
work
● Loose sense of urgency
Anti-Pattern Symptoms

33. Effective Pattern
● Define clear DoD and stick to it
● Splitting story is accepted in early phase of its development

34. Anti-Pattern
● Rework
● Resistance to change
● Do analysis and design in
earlier sprints
Symptoms

35. Effective Pattern
● Ideally, in an agile process, all types of work would finish at
exactly the same time.
● A team should always work to overlap work as much as
possible.

36. Effective Pattern
● Limit WIP
● Measure team throughput instead of Suboptimizing metrics
● Encourage team member to work outside their roles
● Smaller handoffs
● Visualize the issue
● Help the team explore new ways to collaborate

37. 9. Long Planning Meeting

38. ● Disengagement
● Dysfunctions
Anti-Pattern
● Long planning meeting
Symptoms
● Lack of preparation
● Trying too hard to get it
perfect
Cause

39. Effective Pattern
● 1:2 hours per week
● ⅔ of team tasks
● Grooming activities
● Just enough details in user story

40. 10. Daily Status Meeting

41. ● Disengagement
● Dysfunctions
Anti-Pattern
● Scrum master run the
meeting
● Daily Status meeting
● Long meeting
Symptoms

42. Effective Pattern
● Scrum Master just attend
● Taking decisions and deep discussions are out of meeting
scope

43. 11. Disappointing Sprint Review

44. ● Team get disappointed if
they didn’t get appreciated
● Team get disappointed if
items were not demonstrable
● Team don’t accept feedback
● Either PO won’t have too
much input or PO is
detached from the team for
the whole sprint
Anti-Pattern
● Team take it as
appreciation of their effort
● Stakeholders don’t attend
and team demonstrate
items to product owner
Symptoms

45. Effective Pattern
● PO is part from the team
● Purpose: Get feedback from stakeholders not to be
appreciated nor to prove that the team delivered value
● Find a way to get feedback on the not demonstrable items

46. 12. Ineffective Sprint Retrospective

47. ● Disengagement
● Dysfunctions
Anti-Pattern
● Lack of safety
● A lot of blaming
● Team believe it’s useless
Symptoms

48. Effective Pattern
● Provide safety
● Aim for constructive conflicts
● Follow up on previous action items
● Use facilitation techniques in all stages
○ Setting the stage
○ Gather data
○ Gather insights
○ Decide what to do
○ Close

49. 13. Stakeholders Expectations

50. ● Stakeholders are not happy!
Anti-Pattern
● Multiple stakeholders with
different expectations
● Stakeholder lock the 3
aspects cost, time and
scope.
● Either sacrifice quality or
one of the 3 aspects
Symptoms

51. Effective Pattern
● PO order the importance of the 3 aspects
● PO define project success aspects
importance
○ Cost
○ Time
○ Scope
○ Quality
○ Stakeholder Satisfaction
○ Team Satisfaction

52. 14. The usage of info radiators

53. ● Charts and measures don’t
reflect the real case
Anti-Pattern
● Manipulate the tool to
show better charts and
measures
Symptoms

54. Effective Pattern
● Info radiators radiate the current status, It’s a mean not a
goal

55. Thank You!