The Scrum 3x3

I've published a new and improved version of this article on LinkedIn. Click here.

I've been developing software professionally for over 20 years, and project methodology has been a perennial problem in the industry. In the mid-90s it seemed like a new methodology was being devised every other week, and none of them seemed to deliver what was promised. I think I came to the implicit conclusion that software project management was an intractable problem.

If you had told me back then that a new methodology would soon come along that would be adopted by perhaps 80% of commercial companies, with many people reporting great success, I would scarcely have believed it. Yet that is exactly what has happened with Scrum.

Let me admit up front that I am a fan of Scrum, and I want to discuss it in future posts. Now, I'm not really interested in the Quest for the One True Scrum, and nor do I want to participate in the Scrum Wars. But I thought I should at least share what I believe Scrum to be.

Essentially, to be doing Scrum you need to have the following 3x3 -

• 3 Roles - Scrum Master, Product Owner, Team Member
• 3 Meetings - Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review/Retrospectivve
• 3 Artifacts - Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Burndown Chart

The whole process is well captured in this image -

And that's it. If you are doing anything less than this, I would suggest that your methodology is "Scrum-like" but not Scrum. If you are doing anything more, good for you.