<story><title>Why I&apos;m done with Scrum</title><url>http://lostechies.com/jimmybogard/2012/09/12/why-im-done-with-scrum/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fingerprinter</author><text>When I took over development of a extremely dysfunctional engeering team at an established startup with 100 people, the first thing I did (after watching for a bit to learn) was put in scrum. It worked. And it worked really, really well.&lt;p&gt;2 years later, it didn&apos;t work anymore. The team had matured, the organization itself had adapted to the leaner processes and mindset and, in time, the actual scrum process was too much. It was time to change again...&lt;p&gt;And that is something I think most agile advocates don&apos;t realize. Agile should be viewed as an organizational tool that has prescripted and prescribed rules that work in general, but maybe don&apos;t work in the specific. It is great if you need something forceful with books or documentation in the beginning, but in time, the organization should mature to the point where agile/scrum/whatever is actually too much.&lt;p&gt;One last thought. I highly recommend people look at agile for the times when you need a drop in process....but there is absolutely no subsitute for hiring quality people capable of making good decisions. Agile will get more out of bad developers, IMO, but having nothing and good developers you trust is always going to be more productive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>shanemhansen</author><text>Respectfully, I think that an established startup with 100 people is a bit of an oxymoron.&lt;p&gt;I know that no company ever wants to think of itself as &quot;big and established&quot;, in fact my previous company had been around for 13 years, had hundreds of millions in revenue and almost 1k employees and they still liked to pretend they were a disruptive startup.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why I&apos;m done with Scrum</title><url>http://lostechies.com/jimmybogard/2012/09/12/why-im-done-with-scrum/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fingerprinter</author><text>When I took over development of a extremely dysfunctional engeering team at an established startup with 100 people, the first thing I did (after watching for a bit to learn) was put in scrum. It worked. And it worked really, really well.&lt;p&gt;2 years later, it didn&apos;t work anymore. The team had matured, the organization itself had adapted to the leaner processes and mindset and, in time, the actual scrum process was too much. It was time to change again...&lt;p&gt;And that is something I think most agile advocates don&apos;t realize. Agile should be viewed as an organizational tool that has prescripted and prescribed rules that work in general, but maybe don&apos;t work in the specific. It is great if you need something forceful with books or documentation in the beginning, but in time, the organization should mature to the point where agile/scrum/whatever is actually too much.&lt;p&gt;One last thought. I highly recommend people look at agile for the times when you need a drop in process....but there is absolutely no subsitute for hiring quality people capable of making good decisions. Agile will get more out of bad developers, IMO, but having nothing and good developers you trust is always going to be more productive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>debacle</author><text>I think your last point is key. You can&apos;t use process to turn a bad programmer into a mediocre one - any process that does will also turn a great programmer into just a mediocre one.</text></comment>