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Why there is no "Agile" in Scrum?

Last post 07:00 am May 3, 2024 by Anand Balakrishnan
4 replies
04:42 pm May 2, 2024

While the word Agile and Scrum are used interchangeably by users, there is no mentioning of word 'Agile' anywhere in the Scrum guide. Scrum framework is believed to support some of the agile principles, But why scrum guide doest complement those ? Because when we say 'Agile Transformation' in the market, it is by default understood as scrum implementation at team level. 


05:00 pm May 2, 2024

The word "agile" was settled upon at Snowbird in 2001. Scrum predates this (OOPSLA 95) and helped to crystallize the subsequent use of the term.


05:18 pm May 2, 2024

The word Agile came into use after Snowbird in 2001 by individuals/companies that wanted to capitalize on the manifesto published then.  The manifesto used the lower case adjective because it was advocating for ways that organizations could adapt to change.  There was no noun version of that word until after Snowbird.

While the Scrum Guide does not use the word Agile or agile, if you read the guide to learn the framework, you can see that it does describe the ability to adapt to change quickly. 


05:18 pm May 2, 2024

Scrum predates the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. The first Scrum Teams were formed in the early-to-mid 1990s, with the idea based on a paper published in 1986. Both Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland - the two creators of Scrum - were at the meeting at Snowbird in 2001 where the Manifesto was written. The Manifesto was an abstraction of not only their ideas but ideas from other frameworks, such as Extreme Programming, DSDM, and more.

I don't find it strange that the Scrum Guide doesn't mention Agile. The Manifesto is a snapshot in time that represents a particular view of the world based on what was understood in 2001. Although early versions of Scrum influenced Agile, Scrum has continued to evolve. There's no reason for Scrum to refer to something that was an abstraction of Scrum (and other frameworks and methods) over 20 years ago.

People who equate "Scrum" and "Agile" are wrong. You can embrace the values and principles of Agile without following the rules of Scrum. You can implement the mechanical rules of Scrum and fail to be Agile.


07:00 am May 3, 2024

Because when we say 'Agile Transformation' in the market, it is by default understood as scrum implementation at team level. 

Not sure if the above statement is always true, while I do admit that Scrum is the most popular one. Scrum guide does mention about empiricism (transparency, inspection and adaptation) which covers the part about adapting to change so you can say it has the essence of agility. Also scrum events are all about team collaboration, stakeholder/customer collaboration. So empiricism + scrum events kind of covers the 4 values mentioned in the Agile manifesto.

You can embrace the values and principles of Agile without following the rules of Scrum. You can implement the mechanical rules of Scrum and fail to be Agile.

This line hits the nail on its head.


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