The document discusses the "Seven Deadly Sins of Scrum" which can undermine the benefits of an agile Scrum framework. The sins include having a culture and mindset that does not fully embrace the values of agile, not properly aligning all stakeholders to the change, and failing to involve testers fully in planning, estimation and definition of done activities. Other sins are an overemphasis on pushing work rather than teams pulling work, not refining product backlogs collaboratively, and Scrum Masters failing to facilitate organizational change and focus on agile values. The document emphasizes the importance of culture change and embracing agile values to truly realize the benefits of Scrum.

1. The Seven Deadly Sins of Scrum
Fran O’Hara – Inspire Quality Services
Fran.ohara@inspireqs.ie
www.inspireqs.ie
© 2017 Inspire Quality Services 1

2. 2
Scrum Is:
It is:
• Lightweight
• Simple to understand
• Difficult to master
Scrum (n): A framework within which people
can address complex adaptive problems, while
productively and creatively delivering products
of the highest possible value.
- It is NOT itself a Process or Technique
- It is a framework within which you can employ various
Processes and Techniques
Surveys suggest that over
70% of organisations using
agile use Scrum or Scrum
hybrids

3. Scrum
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Scrum.org

4. 4
Roles
Roles
• Product Owner
• ScrumMaster
• Development Team
Events
Events
• Sprint planning
• Sprint review
• Sprint retrospective
• Daily scrum meeting
• (Product Backlog
Grooming/Refinement)
Artifacts
Artifacts
• Product backlog
• Sprint backlog
• Burndown Charts
• Definition of Done
Rules
Each component within the framework serves a specific purpose
and is essential to Scrum’s success and usage.

5. Empirical - Feedback
Learn by Doing
Deliver
Inspect
Set Goal Adapt
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1. Apply Experience & Current Knowledge to Short Term Actions
2. Continuously Measure & Reflect on Results
3. Progressively Increase Predictability & Reduce Risk through iterations
4. Take the new Knowledge and Repeat
Apply to both Process and Product

6. State of Agile
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Versionone Survey:
• While 94% of respondents said their organizations practiced agile,
they also stated that more than half (60%) of their organizations’
teams are not yet practicing agile
• 80% said their organization was at or below a “still maturing” level.
• Challenges experienced adopting/scaling agile
– Company philosophy or culture at odds with core agile values (63%)
– Lack of experience with agile methods (47%)
– Lack of management support (45%)
– General organizational resistance to change (43%)
– Lack of business/customer/product owner (41%)

7. 1. Culture/people/mindset – the
biggest sin of them all
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8. So what’s the problem?
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• To get the benefits of Agile/Scrum (including quality) we
need to embrace its values and principles
 Culture and people
• Changing these is hard
– People tend to resist change
So
• As well as focusing on the framework elements we need to
understand and focus on Agile/Scrum values, principles and
behaviours
– Will also help ensure benefits achieved are sustained and long
lasting

9. Align all stakeholders (incrementally)
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• Top down and bottom up
– Senior Management
Commitment
– Middle management
– Practitioners – dev, test,
BAs
• Impacted stakeholders
– External and Internal
– Customers, Users, Finance,
HR, Purchasing, Product
management, Marketing,
Support…

10. Some wise words….
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• If you experiment with the move to Agile, starting with
your business reasons for it and using feedback to
ensure that you’re on the right track, you too can ease
your transition.
– Johanna Rothman
• The biggest secret in making the transition to Agile isn’t
in the technicalities of the new process, but in “how”
the change initiative is approached. Leaders and
managers must be clear in their communication around
how the change will affect each team member and what
the benefits are. It is by building trust and removing
doubt and fear that resistance disappears.
– Susanne Madsen

11. Team Culture
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Whole Team
thinking?
Cross-functional?
Self organising?

12. Test competency & Roles
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Dedicated testers in agile
teams?
Technical Testers?
Beware ‘Scrum
Developer’

13. 2. The sin of Push v Pull?
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• Only Development
Team estimate and
decide on scope to
‘pull’ into the sprint
based on past
performance and
their projected
Sprint capacity
• ‘Push’
– technical debt
– less transparency
and openness

14. 3. Planning sins
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• Daily planning
– Daily scrum becomes a status reporting session rather
than a self organising opportunity for team to plan their
work
• Sprint planning
– Not involving testers in joint
design and planning
• (Release planning) vs.
empirical forecasting
– Not light and adaptive
– Not including test planning –
test approach
• (Vision)
– no big picture

15. 4. Product Backlog refinement sins
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• Not having valuable
Product Backlog Items
that are ready for next
sprint
– Insufficient involvement
and collaboration
• Teamwork!
– INVEST criteria not met
e.g.
• untestable
• stories too large increasing
risk of mini-waterfalls

16. 5. Definition of Done – many sins!
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• Not having one
• Not following it
• Not specific enough
– Test and coverage weak
• Team, product, organisation – which?
• PBI, Increment, Release level?
• Not evolving it
– Retrospectives should review it
• DoD not used as tool to manage required quality
level and technical debt
– Total cost of ownership rises

17. 6. Sprint backlog sins
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• Not having explicit, estimated
test tasks
– early testing and defect
prevention?
– no big picture testing
– DoD?
• Separation of test
– a phase
• Not estimating and
visualising debug & re-test

18. 7. Scrum Master – all of our sins..
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• Not focused on the Agile & Scrum
values – culture/behaviours
• Manager versus servant leader
• Part-time
• Not harnessing the power of
retrospectives with the team
• Team focus only and not an
organisational change agent
• See other sins!

19. Thank you!
Questions?
Share some sins…
www.inspireqs.ie
fran.ohara@inspireqs.ie

20. What can the team do in relation to
quality/test
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• Commit to whole team approach to testing, quality
• Use retrospectives
– Evaluate quality, technical debt, definition of done
• Extrinsic & intrinsic quality
– Inspect and adapt testing
– Focus on one or two problems at a time
– Experiment
• Share lessons learnt – reflect this in an evolving strategy
• Celebrate successes
– no matter how small