The ScrumGuide says two quietly brutal things:
1/ “The Scrum framework is purposefully incomplete, only defining the parts required to implement Scrum theory.”
2/ “These events work because they implement the empirical Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation.”
Now bring in Cambridge Dictionary: implement = “to put a plan or system into operation.”
So the uncomfortable question isn’t “Do we do Scrum?”
It’s: What exactly did we put into operation?
Because a lot of teams “implement Scrum” the way people “implement fitness”: they buy shoes and then sit in them.
What Scrum is actually asking you to implement is empiricism.
Scrum theory is empiricism. Empiricism only works when three things are real (not PowerPoint-real, but real-real):
- Transparency: the state of the product and the work is visible and understood the same way.
- Inspection: people actually look at what’s happening, not what was promised. They are actively looking to find deviations, problems, and opportunities.
- Adaptation: deviations, problems, and opportunities are addressed fast enough to matter.
Scrum’s elements (accountabilities, events, artifacts) are not the point. They’re the operating mechanism. Like the pedals in a car: needed to own, useless if they’re decorative.
Yes: Scrum is not “about the elements.”
But: if you stop there, people hear “Scrum is vibes” and keep their old bureaucracy—just with stand-ups.
Scrum is incomplete because it refuses to prescribe your engineering, discovery, governance, tooling, org design…
It only defines what’s required to make empiricism unavoidable. Everything else either wraps around it, or gets exposed as unnecessary.
“These events work because they implement…”
Read that literally. Events don’t work because they happen. They work when they create:
- Transparency in minutes, not months (a board no one trusts is wall décor)
- Inspection based on evidence (a Sprint Review that’s a status meeting is cosplay)
- Adaptation with consequences (a Sprint Retrospective without changed working agreements is group therapy)
A practical test:
Ask after each event:
- What became more transparent—specifically?
- What did we inspect that we hadn’t seen before?
- What did we adapt—starting when?
If you can’t answer in 30 seconds, you didn’t implement Scrum as it is intended. You implemented calendar entries.
And here’s the real punchline:
Scrum isn’t implemented when you install the framework. Scrum is implemented when empiricism starts running your decisions.
Scrum on!
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
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Wishing you an inspiring read and a wonderful journey.
Scrum on!
