Shaping up

In the era of Agile Transformations and Agile Coaches, Scrum is often sold as a magic bullet. Expensive coaches are quick to suggest that “Scrum done right” will help a team be more efficient. Some turn the twelve principles of the Agile Manifesto into a series of meetings and call it a day. It is bizarre to believe this leads to repeatable success every time.

Teams are as diverse as the problems they work on. As there is no single solution to all problems, neither can we improve all teams with the same manual. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. We need to look at tools other than Scrum to learn what works for us.

The recently released (and free!) Shape Up by Basecamp is a breath of fresh air. In it, they walk us through their own approach to projects. The book shows that there are other ways we can use to tackle challenges.

Doing exactly what Basecamp did might not work for you, but the same is true of Scrum. We can still achieve success without doing what everybody else is doing. Give Shape Up a read to see that alternatives to Scrum exist.

PS: how awkward is it that we call the meetings that make up Scrum “ceremonies”?